- BERLIN: Mild temperatures melted record December snowfalls across Germany, causing rivers from the Rhine in the west to the Oder in the east to burst their banks, flooding fields and towns, turning streets into waterways, and leaving one person feared dead.
Officials were watching flood levels on the Rhine river in the city of Koblenz on Monday that were expected to peak at 25 feet, 4 inches, and some low-lying parts of the city were under water. Commercial shipping on the Rhine, which leads to major Dutch ports on the North Sea, was banned for a roughly 90-mile stretch, roughly between the cities of Bingen and Cologne, the Bingen Water and Shipping Agency spokesman Martin Mauermann said. Further south, the Moselle river in the western German Rhineland-Palatinate state peaked on Sunday, after flooding several villages in the wine-growing valley. In the village of Zell, some shuttled through the historic city center's narrow lanes on motorboats, passing closed restaurants and inundated houses.