NUREMBERG (dpa-AFX) – Heavy rain led to hundreds of police and fire brigade operations in Nuremberg on Thursday evening. A police spokesman reported in the evening that many basements and underground car parks had filled up, cars had stopped in the water in underpasses and inmates had been trapped. A fire department spokesman added that the people could have freed themselves through the windows of the cars.
Strong thunderstorms also passed through other parts of southern Germany and affected rail traffic, for example. “All ICE/TGV and IC/EC trains will be diverted between Stuttgart and Augsburg and will not stop in Ulm Hbf and Günzburg. The trains will be delayed by around 50 minutes,” said Deutsche Bahn in the evening. “Individual trains are cancelled.”
In Nuremberg, a tram could no longer continue in an underpass because of the water masses, as reported by the fire brigade. There was also a partial power outage in the city because transformer stations failed. The fire brigade had not received any reports of personal injury until the evening.
During the storm, the fire brigade and police received countless emergency calls. In the case of the fire brigade, the lines were partially overloaded despite the increase in personnel. She called on people on Platform X (formerly Twitter) to stay at home and only call the emergency services in “absolute emergencies”.
The activists of the Last Generation group announced on Thursday evening that they would interrupt their blockade actions in Nuremberg. “We don’t have to block, the climate crisis is taking over for us,” it said in a statement after the storm. Activists partially brought traffic to a standstill in Nuremberg and Fürth on Thursday. The climate activists sat down in Nuremberg in front of the main station with banners on the street and blocked the traffic. Temporarily no buses and trams could drive there.
The German Weather Service had warned of storms in Swabia, Upper Bavaria and Middle Franconia well into the night./shy/DP/he