Even after the heavy rain in North Rhine-Westphalia has subsided, the fire brigade and other emergency services are struggling with the worsening flood situation in many places.

In the Euskirchen district, the dam of the Steinbach dam threatened to break on Thursday night.

The situation was also critical at times at the Bevertalsperre and the Wupper Reservoirs.

There, however, the water could flow away in a controlled manner, as the fire brigade announced.

In Solingen, an 82-year-old man died after falling in the flooded basement of his house. In the fall, his head got under water, said a spokeswoman for the Wuppertal police on Thursday. According to the city of Solingen, the man was rescued from a cellar shaft and resuscitated. He died after being transported to the hospital.

Two firefighters died in the rescue operations in the Sauerland.

A 46-year-old firefighter fell into the water on Wednesday afternoon in Altena after rescuing a man from a flooded district and drifted away.

Shortly afterwards, his colleagues were only able to rescue him dead.

Almost two hours later, a 52-year-old firefighter collapsed while working in the area of ​​the Werdohl-Elverlingsen power plant.

Police said he died on Wednesday evening despite resuscitation and relief measures.

According to initial findings, the accident was a health emergency.

You can read all current developments on floods and storms in the live blog here.

Hagen is a flood hotspot

In many places people had to be brought to safety from the floods.

There were also large-scale power outages.

A spokeswoman for the network operator Westnetz reported on Thursday morning that around 190,000 households were without electricity because substations and other systems were flooded and had to be switched off.

The Bergisches Land and the Eifel are particularly affected.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) wanted to get an idea of ​​the situation in the flood hotspot Hagen on Thursday in the city of Hagen, which was particularly badly affected by the flooding.

There, the flooding of the Volme worsened the situation again on Thursday evening.

Around 440 firefighters and technical aid workers were there alone.