100,000 flee homes, billions lost in Germany

Germany is counting the costs of the worst flooding in more than a decade, which claimed at least eight lives, forced an estimated 100,000 people to flee their homes and left a trail of devastation from Bavaria in the south to Schleswig-Hostein in the north.

As the swollen Elbe continued to threaten several cities and villages in northern Germany along its path to the North Sea, Chancellor Angela Merkel has convened a meeting with the premiers of the 16 states in Berlin to work out a long-term plan for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the affected regions.

She had announced an emergency assistance of 100 million euros ($130 million) for the flood victims at the beginning of the disaster.

The meeting is expected to come up with a preliminary estimate of the overall costs of the disaster in terms of the loss of private properties, damage to business and devastation of the infrastructure. 

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Various experts suggested ahead of the meting that the economic costs of the two-week flooding will be much higher than during the last worst flooding in 2002 because this time the Danube in the south and and the Elbe in the north-east as well as their tributaries were swollen by heavy rainfalls simultaneously and hit much wider and more populous areas.

Rating agency Fitch estimated that the damage caused by the floods could be around $15.6 billion. The costs for the insurance companies will be around $3.25 billion, it said.

If the agency's estimate proves to be true, then the total costs of the current flooding will be much higher than in 2002 when the insurance costs were around 1.8 billion euros.

The federal government and the state governments are planning to set up jointly a special fund of $10.4 billion to support flood victims and to finance rehabilitation and reconstruction projects in the flood-hit regions, media reports said.

The two sides have reached an agreement to share the financing of the aid package equally and a final decision on setting up the fund will be taken at today's meeting, according to the reports. 

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The aid fund, which was set up after the "flood of the century" eleven years ago had a capital of 7 billion euros.

Merkel, who faces a parliamentary election in September in her bid to secure a third term, promised the flood victims speedy assistance without any bureaucratic hurdles.

During a visit on Wednesday to Lauenberg, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, which is bracing for the arrival of the flood, she said her centre-right coalition had set "no upper limit" for the fund.

She said the flooding had caused "heavy damage" because in many disaster areas the infrastructure has been severely destroyed.

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Merkel also visited the town of Hitzacker, in Lower Saxony, where hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes after the flooding there rose to dangerous levels.

Many residents in the Stendal area of Saxony Anhalt were evacuated yesterday as the flooding in that region following the caving in of a dyke in the nearby town Fischbeck two days ago spread to more villages.

The situation in several other flood-hit areas stabilised after the Elbe water level began to decline. 

The death toll in the disaster rose to eight after a 61-year-old man was electrocuted as he tried to pump out water from a flooded cellar of his house in the state of Saxony Anhalt, reports said. 

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