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CNN Live Today

In Germany, Soldiers, Civilians, Emergency Crews Frantically Trying to Keep Out Waters

Aired August 19, 2002 - 12:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Soldiers, civilians and emergency crews are frantically building walls of sandbags, trying to keep out the waters. Speaking of water, I think I need some. Which are still rising in parts of Germany. Others are beginning the massive cleanup from days of flooding.
CNN's Michael Holmes joins us from the eastern city of Dessau -- Michael.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi to you, carol.

Yes, what you can see behind me isn't a lake or it is certainly not meant to be. It used to be farmland. And further back those houses underwater. It is the suburb of Valdes (ph), just outside Dessau, home to some 1,500 hundred or so people. They've all lost their homes to these floodwaters that have been coursing through eastern Germany this past week or so, and what happened there was a tragedy. The dike, a levy, just outside the town, broke and floodwaters poured into the town.

Workers embarked on an amazing effort to build a wall right across the center of that suburb. They failed. Unfortunately, the floodwaters broke through. Now the entire suburb of Valdez (ph) is underwater.

Just a couple of hours ago, Carol, we cam from another dramatic fight under way. One of the problems has been that as the river levels stabilize but don't go down, dikes and levies which surround many towns, villages and suburbs several kilometers from the actual river are put under enormous pressure by these floodwaters.

And about 30 or so kilometers from here, one of those levies started to break apart, and a furious effort under way still, as we speak, to try to repair that. Hundreds of people, thousands of sandbags, and a lot of engineering ingenuity going into that. If that dike does fail, another village will certainly go underwater, as have several in this part of Germany -- Carol.

LIN: Michael, I can't help but look at the water behind you. Can you give us some perspective of how bad these floods are from your vantage point? Where would the water normally be before the flood?

HOLMES: Right. I will get, Paul, our cameraman to zoom into the suburb there and have a look at. In short, Carol, that water should not be there. It usually isn't there, even in seasons of heavy rain, and the people of that village back there in the house, the water is at least half way up the front doors.

What happened yesterday was dramatic when this levee broke and the water started to come into town. Workers put up a wall, right across the center of a suburb, in effect. It went for several hundred meters, and they hoped that would hold it. Unfortunately, it just broke through.

The weight of this water, obviously enormous, and that's been the problem we have seen as several other levies or dikes around here. The dikes themselves, some of them 15, 20 feet high, they just get soaked, and essentially just fall apart. And that's been the problem, even though the floodwaters themselves have stabilized and are started to recede in many places, it's almost not enough, and these floodwaters are sometimes five kilometers, or about three and a half miles from the actual river, so that's the sort of spread you're looking at. People who thought they would never be flooded are indeed so tonight.

LIN: That's remarkable. All right, thank you very much, Michael Holmes, reporting live from Dessau, Germany.

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