The death toll from the devastating floods that hit Germany and Belgium rose to 170 last night, after torrential rains destroyed homes, roads and snapped power lines this Sunday.
At least 143 people died in the worst natural disaster to hit Germany in the last 50 years.
Among them are about 98 victims in the Arweiler district, south of Cologne, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of people are still missing or unreachable as several areas are inaccessible due to high water levels, while communication lines are still not established in some places.
The local population in the affected places is trying to repair as much as possible.
"Everything was completely destroyed. You can't recognize the space at all," Mihael Lang, the owner of a wine shop in Arvajler, told Reuters, wiping away tears.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Erfstadt in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia where at least 43 people died.
"We grieve with those who lost friends, acquaintances, family members," said Steinmeier.
About 700 people were evacuated on Friday when a dam burst in the town of Wassenberg, near Cologne.
The mayor of Wassenberg, Marcel Maurer, said that the water level had stabilized and that he was cautiously optimistic.
There is a risk that the Steinbachtal Dam in western Germany could burst, officials said, after 4.500 people were evacuated from homes downstream.
Steinmeier said that it will take weeks to be able to assess the complete damage, which is expected to cost the reconstruction funds several billions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to travel today to Rhine-Palatinate, the state where the destroyed village of Schuld is located.
In Belgium, at least 27 people died in the floods, while 103 are missing or unreachable.
Authorities say a certain number must be unavailable because they can't charge their phones or are in hospitals without documents.
Dutch rescue services are on alert as swollen rivers threaten towns and villages across the southern province of Limburg.
Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated in the past two days, while soldiers, fire brigades and volunteers worked continuously yesterday to install embankments and clean up the consequences of the floods.
Why so devastating?
Europe has been hit by heavy floods before, but these weeks were exceptional both in terms of the amount of water and the destructiveness.
Moist air masses were blocked by the low temperature at high altitudes, which is why they stayed over this region for four days, Jean Jouzel, climatologist and former vice-president of the International Panel on Climate Change - IPCC, explained to AFP.
Many European politicians blame global warming for the disaster, while Germany's right-wing AfD accuses them of using the floods to justify an anti-climate change agenda.
"We still cannot say with certainty that this event is related to global warming, but global warming makes such events more likely," German hydrologist Kai Schroeter told AFP.
The most affected are the areas around smaller rivers and tributaries that did not have defensive embankments and were too quickly flooded by heavy rainfall.
Local authorities in Germany have been criticized for not evacuating the population in time.
The professor of hydrology at the British University of Reading, Hana Louk, claims that the warnings of meteorologists were not taken seriously and that there was no adequate preparation for the disaster.
Part of the population was simply not aware of the risks and did not even adhere to two basic recommendations - to avoid staying on the ground floor and basements, which are the first to flood, and to immediately turn off the electricity in the building.
Some experts point out the danger of poor spatial planning and the increasing use of concrete in a densely populated part of Europe.
When the soil is covered with materials like concrete, it means that it cannot absorb as much water.
"Urbanization has played a role," says Juzel. "Would the number of victims have been the same if something like this had happened 40 years ago?"
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