In the wake of devastating heavy rains and flooding that killed more than 150 people last week in western Germany, the nongovernmental humanitarian agency IsraAID is sending staff members to affected areas to provide much-needed clean-up and disaster-relief assistance.
“With Germany hit by its worst flooding in living memory, IsraAID and IsraAID Germany—our locally based team, who have been working with refugees across the country since 2015—felt it was important to provide what support we can to affected communities, who have been through such tragedy in recent days,” said Ethan Schwartz, a media and communications manager at IsraAID. “We have partnered with ZWST [the Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany] to bring urgent relief.”
He added that the initial emergency response team is “assessing the situation on the ground and determining a course of action.”
Elsewhere, the American Jewish Committee, which has an office in Berlin, said that it will be providing a grant to IsraAID to help with emergency relief.
Much of the damage occurred in the Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia areas of western Germany and the neighboring Wallonia area of Belgium after a deluge of up to six inches of rain occurred in a 24-hour period—more than the region gets monthly.
