BERLIN — Germany on Monday marked the fifth anniversary of the devastating July 2021 floods that killed more than 180 people across Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attending memorial events throughout the Ahr Valley.
Steinmeier opened a photography exhibition in Altenahr, where 33 people died and 520 of 660 homes were damaged, and laid a wreath at the Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler cemetery honoring 65 victims in a town that saw roughly 80 percent of its area submerged. Memorial services were also held in Schuld and Altenahr. Among the dead were twelve residents of a care facility for people with intellectual disabilities in Sinzig.
Five years on, billions of euros are being channelled into reconstruction and flood defences, including 17 planned retention dams along the Ahr and its tributaries estimated to cost over 1.5 billion euros. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, material damage reached roughly 13 billion euros.