Dn the night from Wednesday to Thursday, heavy rainfall fell in the south of the country, near the French border. In Couvin, roads were flooded, greatly complicating traffic conditions. Rainfall amounts reached 70 liters of water/m2 in the Semois valley and in Hainaut in particular.
Several rivers have overflowed and watercourses are still on flood alert in Namur, Liège and Luxembourg. 1722 is always activated in case of urgent fire intervention.
Evacuation in progress in Couvin
In Couvin, a military helicopter is currently evacuating residents of a campsite stuck due to flooding. On Wednesday evening, the municipal emergency plan was triggered by the mayor of Couvin, Claudy Noiret, because the center was partially flooded, the level of the Black Water having risen very quickly. “In one hour, the watercourse rose 1m50 high,” he explains to RTBF.
The Chenaux and Caillou d’Eau campsites were evacuated, but some residents refused to leave, not being aware of the seriousness of the situation. This morning, firefighters were unable to reach the area and the emergency plan was triggered again, forcing the municipality to call in a helicopter to evacuate the last residents on site.
Flooded cellars in Huy
Firefighters from the Hesbaye Meuse Condroz zone (Hemeco) are also mobilized for pumping operations in the cellars of the Huy polytechnic school, we learned Thursday morning from the zonal dispatching. Some other pumping is underway in Condroz.
The largest intervention was still in progress, Thursday morning around 9:30 a.m., along the Quai de Compiègne, in Huy. “The cellars of the polytechnic school are under water, but the pumping should be finished by mid-morning,” said the Hemeco emergency zone dispatcher.
For the rest of the territory covered by the zone, some pumping of residential cellars was undertaken in the entities of Anthisnes and Comblain-au-Pont.
The neighboring regions of Hannut and Waremme were spared from the heavy rains. Firefighters from the Hesbaye emergency zone said they did not have to intervene.
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Several interventions in the province of Luxembourg
Firefighters from the Luxembourg emergency zone have carried out around a hundred interventions linked to Storm Kirk over the last 24 hours, the emergency zone command announced Thursday morning. These interventions mainly concerned pumping operations linked to runoff water as well as logging operations.
“We also carried out various preventive interventions,” underlines Commander Stéphane Thiry. “Wednesday morning, we established a procedure with the governor of the province and the mayors for the provision of sandbags to the municipal authorities on the basis of a risk analysis,” underlines Commander Stéphane Thiry, who also highlights the use of other means of preventive intervention in the emergency zone.
The province’s waterways are still placed on flood alert, says Governor Olivier Schmitz on his Facebook page. “We are not at the end of the post-critical situation. Flows can further increase on the Semois,” continues Commander Stéphane Thiry, who urges people to exercise caution near rivers.
The situation in the rest of the country
The Kirk depression, with its very active rain zone, which crossed Belgium “has now left our country, and the heaviest precipitation is behind us”, announced the Royal Meteorological Institute (IRM) this Thursday at 6:00 a.m.
Only code yellow warnings remain in effect in the morning in the provinces of Hainaut, Liège, Namur and Luxembourg. The warnings were therefore downgraded, while the province of Luxembourg threatened to switch to orange or even red codes in particular.
