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hundreds remain unaccounted for and thousands are now homeless. thousands of residents of wassenberg, an area west of the german city of cologne, have been evacuated after a dam was breached by floodwater overnight. german officials say the country s flood warning system functioned as it was supposed to, but the amount of rain ? and how rapidly it fell ? was unforeseen. let s cross over live now to my colleague kasia madera, who s in erfstadt in germany. as the floodwaters receded in western germany, residents can counting the cost. achim hueck s home once stood here. it has been reduced to rubble, along with the owner s recently renovated fish farm, which was meant to fund his retirement. translation: i had just put another 35,000 euros into the house - in the last two weeks. everything, new water pipes laid. i still have to pay the bills. his neighbour built this house by hand. he said he carried every stone here.
swollen rivers, including the rhine, the meuse and the ahr, have swept through towns and villages, destroying homes and leaving many stranded. in erftstadt in germany, whole houses have been submerged and a landslide has demolished parts of the town. 0ur correspondentjenny hill has spent the day in erfstadt and is now in the ahr valley. clive, tonight the waters are starting to slowly recede across the region, but the number of dead is expected to continue to rise. today, the german president described what happened and happening is a tragedy which has left him stunned. it s a sentiment which is shared by so many people in this area, not least in the town you mentioned, the town of erftstadt, where emergency workers have been carrying out a search and
vanga live from erfstadt, germany. what is the situation there? reporter: well, as you can see here, this is very much an ongoing situation, an ongoing catastrophe as angela merkel, the chancellor of germany called it yesterday. as you can see behind me, this used to be a gentle waterway in this town of erfstadt which is one of the towns in this area that have been the most affected by the floods. even though it hasn t rained since this morning for the first time in several days when torrential rain came down at record levels in this area, it is still a raging river which is being fed i don t know whether you can see it behind me by the tons of water that is coming down from the fields, back from the fields that have been completely inundated and under water for the past couple of days. this is an ongoing catastrophe
because there are towns like this one in erfstadt, we are about an hour s drive from cologne where people are still calling for help to get out of their houses. there was a posting from the local authority here saying that the problem now, after the devastation called by the flood is the rapid and massive this is what they said, local administration, rapid and massive under washing of the foundations of the houses and of the infrastructures that are now at risk of collapsing. there are still people stuck in there that are calling rescuers for help and would love to be taken out either by helicopter or inflatable boats. there are more than a thousand still missing. andrea? claudio lavanga in erfstadt, thank you so much. turning to south africa, where a week of deadly protests have left a hundred people dead and