Limburg storm sets new record; Over a hundred damage claims reported
Thunderstorms and heavy rainfall caused major damage in the province of Limburg on Tuesday night. The municipalities of Landgraaf and Kerkrade were hit particularly hard.
Because there was no wind, the clouds remained over the area around Kerkrade for a long time. In Maastricht, 87.2 millimeters fell from the sky. Never before had so much rain fallen there in a single day according to the broadcaster NOS.
"According to the radar analysis of Kachelmannwetter, 100-110 mm fell locally in the Landgraaf / Eygelshoven region today already! That's almost double the monthly amount of rain..." meteorologist Wouter van Bernebeek said on Twitter.
Insurance company Interpolis said that it received 138 damage claims from the storm over the course of Wednesday morning. About eighty percent of them were reported from the Limburg province, a spokesperson told L1.
A spokesperson for Univé said that they received dozens of damage reports from residents of the province, and that it was expecting more in the days to come.
"Really not normal. The kitchen and basement just flooded. Roof tiles couldn't handle the influx of water," a resident of Landgraaf said on Twitter.
Rail traffic was also affected by the thunderstorm. Train traffic between Heerlen and Herzogenrath (DLD) and between Maastricht and Sittard was halted and did not resume until Thursday night, ProRail said. Arriva and NS temporarily used buses to transport passengers.
The police control room received numerous reports of flooding in Landgraaf, Kerkrade and Eygelshoven. The fire department has set up four barracks in South Limburg as alarm centers. These are the barracks in Maastricht, Gulpen, Heerlen and Sittard. From there, the actions to prevent flooding were coordinated, AD reported.
The Dutch meteorological institute KNMI issued a code orange weather warning, which was lifted again around 10:30 p.m.
The severe thunderstorm also caused problems in parts of Belgium, France and Germany on Tuesday.
