After a lightning strike in a hall complex in Weingarten (Karlsruhe district), damage in the millions was caused according to initial estimates. According to witnesses, the lightning struck on Saturday night, as the police announced in the morning. The building houses halls that are used as car repair shops, paint shops and warehouses.
When the fire brigade arrived, one hall was already fully engulfed in flames. According to the police, the flames were fanned further when they spread to a paint shop. Gas bottles also exploded. Several parcels were affected. The extinguishing work continued on Saturday morning.
Surrounding houses were evacuated to be on the safe side. The residents stayed with acquaintances and relatives or, for the time being, with the fire brigade. Nobody got hurt. The fire brigade was on site with around 300 people from surrounding regions, the rescue service with around 50 and the police with around 20 people.
In the south and east of Germany, further thunderstorms, some of them heavy, with heavy rain are expected on Saturday. “While a high wedge with drier and cooler air is already noticeable in the west and north-west, the rest of the country is under the influence of low pressure, warm and humid air with a tendency to thunderstorms, which is only hesitantly pushed to the south-east and east,” said the German Weather Service (DWD) with.
Showers and thunderstorms are increasing in the east and south as well as in the eastern center of the country over the course of the day. Heavy rain of 30 to 60 liters per square meter is possible within a few hours. Compared to Friday, however, there is a lower probability of extreme amounts of water. In the night to Sunday, the DWD continues to expect local storms due to heavy rain, but the probability of this decreases over the course of the night.
In Berlin, the fire brigade prepared for possible further storm operations after the heavy rain on Friday evening. The state of emergency weather was declared for about three hours on Friday evening in order to be able to mobilize sufficient forces in an emergency. During this time there were almost 80 weather-related operations, as a spokesman said on Saturday. In most cases, therefore, private cellars had to be pumped out. Storm damage such as broken branches would have been limited. In Brandenburg, too, many cellars were full.
East and South Westphalia were also affected by local thunderstorms, some with heavy rain, on Friday. Emergency services reported fallen trees and waterlogged basements. Larger damages were initially not known.
Heavy thunderstorms and heavy rain also caused an uncomfortable start to the weekend in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. Because of water masses and debris on the road, the police closed the Pforzheim-Ost junction of the Autobahn 8 in the direction of Stuttgart on Friday evening. Three people were injured in an aquaplaning accident on the A81 near Ludwigsburg.
In Bavaria, too, hundreds of cellars and streets were under water. Lightning struck roofs in some places. There were no injuries, police spokesmen said. Northern Bavaria and the greater Nuremberg area were particularly affected by the storm.
After heavy rain, the village of Jützenbach was flooded by a red mudslide in Eichsfeld in Thuringia. The earth was washed up from an adjacent field onto the village street, as the situation center announced on Saturday. The through road had to be closed. Fire brigades and volunteers were deployed to make the road passable again.
