Germany’s biggest airport on Thursday witnessed unusual scenes with a large amount of water flooding the entire premises forcing cancellation and diversion of over 110 flights. The airport, the country’s busiest, said large quantities of water accumulated on the tarmac Wednesday evening and ground handling was suspended for over two hours, German news agency dpa reported, as quoted by The Associated Press. A storm swept over southwest Germany triggering massive floods in basements and streets due to incessant rain.
As per an AFP report, the storm unleashed over 25,000 bolts of lightning in about an hour, stated NDTV. Several cars were underwater due to heavy downpours in Gelsenkirchen, in the western Ruhr district.
Had quite a few DM’s from people wondering why flights were diverting away from Frankfurt….here’s your answer 👇💦
— Flight Emergency (@FlightEmergency) August 16, 2023
Frankfurt Airport said it was forced to cancel 90 flights while 23 more were rerouted to land at other airports, as per the report. It added that several passengers slept on camp beds while many spent the night at the airport hotel. A spokesperson told AFP, “Today, the situation will probably stabilise again.”
“There are still passengers here who need to be booked onto new flights,” he added, as quoted by AFP. Meanwhile, Germany’s fire service launched over 500 operations from late Wednesday to early Thursday related to the storm. They said that there were more than 350 instances of water flooding into buildings and 17 fallen trees, adding that off-duty personnel were called in to help.
Streets, cellars and lower-lying residential areas were rapidly flooded, while trees got uprooted, hitting vehicles, the fire service said, as quoted by AFP. Emergency service workers rescued people from vehicles at several highway underpasses.