The flood will come on Sunday – but debris from the Carola Bridge is still hanging in the Elbe. The German army has sent recovery tanks to Dresden: for the worst case scenario.
In Dresden, the situation at the collapsed Carola Bridge is becoming increasingly serious. “We’re running out of time here,” said fire department spokesman Michael Klahre on Friday. “We’re really fighting against time here.”
The demolition of the bridge, which partially collapsed on Wednesday night, has now begun. Explosions were first heard in Dresden. The explosions were used to deliberately cut through tram tracks and district heating pipes. Then excavators went to work.
According to Simone Prüfer, head of the building department, ten of the heavy machines are currently in use. A specialist company is using jackhammers and other clearing vehicles. The aim: “To get as many endangered parts out of the river as possible so as not to worsen the flow profile,” as Prüfer said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
At present, the affected bridge section C is still mostly in the Elbe. The debris should be removed from there as quickly as possible. Because the flood is coming on Sunday. A water level of four meters is expected early on Sunday morning, with a rapid rise. According to current forecasts, the water level will be more than five and a half meters by Monday afternoon, just below alarm level 3.
And the water is already under pressure, as current measurements show. On Monday morning the water level was still at one meter, and by early Friday afternoon it was almost two.
Video | Partial demolition of the Carola Bridge in Dresden has begun
Source: dpa
The consequences could be dramatic. Experts are warning of disaster after disaster, when low pressure system Anett causes torrential rain to fall over the Czech Republic, the Elbe continues to swell and flotsam is pressed against the ruins of the Carola Bridge.
In the worst case scenario, the bridge could collapse completely. This means that the lives of people working on the bridge are in danger. On Friday, it was discovered that steel strands used as a supporting structure in the concrete of the bridge were partially corroded. The big question now is: could bridge sections A and B also be affected?
Investigations are currently being carried out on these, too, said building department head Prüfer. Alarming: “Train B, we already know this and it is visible, also shows deformations in the 8 to 15 centimetre range.” The railings have drifted apart, she said.
The German army is now intervening in this situation. It is sending two “Büffel” tanks on low-loaders to Dresden. They are driving on the motorways from Marienberg in Saxony and Bad Frankenhausen in Thuringia towards Dresden, as the MDR reported. They arrived in the evening.
The recovery tanks are to be stationed on the Neustadt bank. They would be used if the civilian operations command requested them to clear rubble, it was said. But the Bundeswehr has already played through other deployment scenarios. If an excavator falls into the river during flooding, the tanks could also be useful. Or if there is a total disaster.
