I would always feel insecure.”Dirk Wershofer, 48, covered in mud, came to clean out his parents’ home. “People right now work, wash, sleep, work and sleep and work again. But in a week they will be very angry.”Farther upriver, in Altenahr, a pretty tourist town, the destruction is profound. The Ahr curves around the town, and so the flood hit from two directions, demolishing almost everything in its way. Buildings like the pub and guesthouse, Zum Schwarzen Kreuz, which bears a reference to “the guesthouse on the bridge, 1640,” are so fully ruined that they are likely to have to be demolished.

Source: International New York Times July 18, 2021 18:11 UTC