At least one dead, dozens injured and millions in damage – that is the preliminary balance after hurricane “Emmelinde” in Germany. NRW was particularly hard hit.
According to the police, 43 people were injured in Paderborn, ten of them seriously. In the Rhineland-Palatinate town of Wittgert, a 38-year-old man suffered an electric shock in a flooded basement and died. In Central Franconia, 14 people were injured when a shelter collapsed.
Of the 43 people injured by the tornado in Paderborn, 30 were still being treated in the hospital, the Paderborn police said on Saturday night. Ten of them were seriously injured. A woman who was in mortal danger was transferred to a clinic in Bielefeld in the evening.
According to a police spokesman, “a tornado ran across the city” and caused damage worth millions. The fire brigade, technical relief organization (THW) and other helpers took part in the clean-up and security work in the East Westphalian city. The police presence was also significantly increased.
The Paderborn police spoke of a “swath of devastation”. Countless roofs were torn off, numerous trees uprooted. Public transport was severely affected.
In view of the wind that was picking up again and again and many dangerous areas that were still unsecured, the police called on people to stay at home. “Increased dangers from strong winds” can also be expected for Saturday.
Lippstadt was also badly hit by the storm. The fire brigade announced that “a tornado probably passed through the North Rhine-Westphalian city in the afternoon”. Spokesman reported in the evening of “covered roofs, broken shop windows and many fallen trees across the city”. Injuries are “currently not known”.
The St. Clemens Church in the district of Hellinghausen was badly damaged and the church tower was demolished. A Twitter video shows the extent:
The German Weather Service (DWD) has confirmed three suspected tornado cases. “We can confirm three,” said a spokesman for the DWD on Saturday morning of the German Press Agency. Accordingly, tornadoes occurred in Paderborn, Lippstadt and in Lütmarsen, a district of the city of Höxter.
The storm depression also raged in Rhineland-Palatinate. According to the police in Koblenz, a 38-year-old suffered an electric shock in Wittgert in the Westerwald on Friday evening in a friend’s basement, which was flooded after a heavy thunderstorm. The man fell after being electrocuted and probably hit his head. Police say attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.
According to the police, there was “extreme” hail with hailstones with a diameter of around five centimeters in Andernach and Neuwied. Several dozen cars were badly damaged. Some of the windows of moving cars were smashed, the police said.
Several roads in the Koblenz region were closed for hours due to fallen trees. Several cars also remained in flooded underpasses.
In the Middle Franconian district of Roth, a wooden hut collapsed, in which some people had apparently sought shelter from the storm. 14 people were injured, most of them slightly, according to the police headquarters in Middle Franconia. A child and a 37-year-old woman had to be taken to the hospital by the rescue helicopter with serious injuries. The cause of the collapse of the hut in Enderndorf am See was still being investigated.
According to their own statements, the Thuringian police had to completely block the federal road 84 near Eisenach and the country road 2019 near Meiningen for around three hours due to fallen trees. The A9 was closed at Eisenberg for a quarter of an hour for clean-up work.
Deutsche Bahn announced that the storm could cause delays and train cancellations in parts of Germany. Several stops were canceled on the ICE and IC connections between Cologne, Wuppertal, Dortmund and Hamm, and the route between Hamm and Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe on the ICE and IC connections between Cologne, Hamm and Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe could not be used. There were also impairments in Lower Saxony, Bremen, Middle Franconia and Baden-Württemberg.
The German Weather Service (DWD) lifted all severe weather warnings for Germany at 1:37 a.m. Later it was said that there were still isolated strong thunderstorms in southern Bavaria and gusts of wind in the east.
