05/08/2023 – 17:38
Reutlingen was hit by a heavy hailstorm. Ice reached a height of 30 centimeters in some parts of the municipality, which had to resort to snowplow vehicles. a heavy hailstorm.
Municipal authorities reported this Saturday (05/08) that a “localized storm with hail and heavy rain” swept through the small town on Friday. At some points, the ice accumulated to a height of up to 30 centimeters.
The fire department said it had received more than 120 calls due to the sudden storm.
“The first operations involved people trapped in their cars, unable to move because of hail on the ground or because the doors [do veículo] could not be opened,” said a spokesman for the emergency response center in Reutlingen.
Snowplows went into action to remove blocks of hailstones, some of them up to 1.8 centimeters in diameter, while more than 250 people, including volunteers and city employees and emergency teams, participated in the cleaning operations.
A city spokesman said ice and leaves had blocked the city’s drainage system, causing some flooding in underground parking lots, basements and residential buildings.
The level of the Echaz River, which runs through Reutlingen, rose by 1.5 meters in just a few minutes. It briefly overflowed, but did no major damage.
The German Meteorological Service (DWD, for its German acronym) explained this Saturday that the hail storm that hit Reutlingen is not unusual. The problem is that it formed a little before reaching the city and moved very slowly on Friday afternoon, causing a lot of hail to fall on the municipality in a short time.
With less than 120,000 inhabitants, Reutlingen is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg and is located about 40 kilometers south of Stuttgart, close to the borders of France and Switzerland.
ek (AFP, DPA)
#German #town #snowplows #midsummer