Severe thunderstorms swept across parts of western and southern Germany yesterday evening and during the night, causing major damage in Saarland in particular. In Asweiler in the community of Freisen (district of St. Wendel), the storm developed considerable destructive power and raged in a swath of about 100 meters, as the police situation center announced. It was initially unclear whether it was a tornado. A large contingent of fire brigades, THW and police were deployed.
Around 30 buildings in Asweiler were damaged, said Saarland Interior Minister Reinhold Jost (SPD). Fortunately, however, no one was injured. “The damage picture had made us fear worse,” said Jost. The population was taken care of in the village community center.
“Things are really going well for us”
In Baden-Württemberg, too, the storm front caused damage after temperatures of up to 37 degrees during the day, but to a lesser extent. The Freiburg police said there had been a large number of operations due to fallen trees. “Things are really going well for us,” reported a police officer in Reutlingen in the evening. There are several traffic accidents with injuries due to the severe storm.
Lightning struck the roof of a residential building in the district of Ludwigsburg, triggering a fire that caused damage estimated at around 250,000 euros and made the house uninhabitable. Nobody got hurt.
A severe thunderstorm was particularly active in Sigmaringen, Ravensburg and in the Lake Constance district. In the Lake Constance region, extreme storms of the highest warning level 4 were warned around 11 p.m. According to the German weather service, there was a general all-clear for Baden-Württemberg around midnight and the thunderstorms continued towards Bavaria.
Emergency services move out more than 200 times
There, too, the storm front caused countless fallen trees. There were initially no reports of injuries in Bavaria either. “I don’t even know of a slightly injured person,” said a spokesman for the Regensburg police.
Nevertheless, according to the police, emergency services had to move out more than 200 times in the Rosenheim and Ingolstadt districts. There, too, the emergencies were largely limited to uprooted trees and torn branches. In the district of Rosenheim, for example, a tree fell on a car and the construction site sign on a motorway near Regensburg blew onto the road. Scaffolding collapsed in Augsburg.
Before it moved on to Germany, the storm had also raged in France. Storm gusts with a speed of over 100 kilometers per hour were recorded in Dijon and Mulhouse. The French railways stopped traffic on some routes for safety reasons. The ceiling of a supermarket collapsed in Dijon and dozens of trees were uprooted in Vichy. Residents of the region shared photos of large hailstones falling with the storm gusts, according to broadcaster BFMTV and newspaper Le Parisien. Initially, no one was harmed.
