(Eastern floods; 02-02; p.2)

Villages and towns were flooded and hundreds of thousands people had to be evacuated, many of them facing the annihilation of their economic being.

There are as many examples to illustrate the dimensions of destruction as there are fates of people affected; nonetheless some facts may be useful:
• In Germany mostly the south-eastern länder - federal units of the republic - were affected, i.e. Saxonia, Saxonia-Anhalt and Bavaria. Smaller rivers like the Mulde became threatening floodbringers instead of recognised areas for weekend holidays. The river Mulde e.g. widened from the usual twenty meters to some two hundred.
• The river Elbe near Dresden rose from a usual two meters water-level to nine meters in mid-august. Beside flats, houses and administrative buildings some historical sites like the Zwinger vanished in the floods.
• To prevent further damage and start tidying up things there are more than 50 000 service personnel at work, half of them soldiers, the others civilians like fire-fighters and service-men from the Technische Hilfswerk, a kind of non-military national guard which gives technical assistance in case of catastrophes.
• Floods like these were unheard of in German territories for the whole of the industrial age.

What are the political tasks in the face of such processes in nature? From an analytical point of view, the question falls into three parts: the ones of possible prevention, of crisis-management, and of necessary remedies. (read on here)