It is shortly before three thirty when panic breaks out in Sinzig.

“Water is coming,” someone shouts.

“Get to safety!” People begin to run for their lives.

There is a crowd, there is pushing from behind.

Everyone tries to get away as quickly as possible and not fall over in the process.

The floor is full of mud and slippery.

In the middle of the street there is a truck and a tractor.

They block the way, people push past to the left and right.

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200 meters further on, a man gives the all-clear. There will be no second tidal wave. The fire brigade control center assured him that. “It's all fake news,” he yells. There is uncertainty, but also relief. And anger. A youngster says: "Whoever spreads such rumors, I'll knock his teeth out." Then a young man rushes up on his moped. No fake news, he proclaims. A dam was broken.

The horror is written on people's faces.

They fear what little they have left.

It has only been a few days since the river Ahr turned into a torrent in the night from Wednesday to Thursday.

In Sinzig, the tidal wave carried away whatever got in its way.

Local residents report how garbage cans and cars were washed away.

In some living rooms the water was up to the ceiling.

According to official information, 14 people died here in the floods.

Backdrops like in a disaster movie

Even on Saturday afternoon, the streets in Sinzig in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate are reminiscent of scenes like in a disaster film. There are rubble and rubble everywhere. A car stands on its back wheels and leans vertically against a house wall. Mountains of bulky waste are piled up in front of the houses: cupboards, tables, washing machines. But it's the little things that make it clear that people actually live here. Photo albums, dolls, guitars, smeared with brown mud, are waiting to be disposed of. Sirens can be heard wailing throughout the day. Helicopters circle over the city.

The report of the dam breach bursts in the middle of the clean-up work. Since the morning hours, for the second day in a row, people have been putting their belongings on the street. Electric generators roar in front of some houses. When the Ahr retreated, the mud remained. You can hardly get through the streets without rubber boots. The residents shovel and cart the mud out of their houses.

A young woman is standing in front of a house on Kantstrasse and smokes.

A brown line can be seen on the actually white wall of the house.

It shows that the water was just below the kitchen window.

The young woman came from neighboring Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler to support her in-laws.

It looks much worse in Ahrweiler, she says.

"My neighbors saw people die there when they were swept away by the floods." She holds on to her cigarette, swallows, fights the tears.

The father-in-law comes along.

Just a year ago he rented the house and painstakingly renovated it.

When the tide came, he and his wife were able to save themselves upstairs.

There were warnings of heavy rain and flooding.

"But we didn't take them seriously enough."

Great willingness to help

Around 17,000 people live in Sinzig, which lies at the mouth of the Ahr and the Rhine. A lower-lying residential area near the shore is mainly affected by the destruction. Floods keep coming back there. But this extent is new. Despite the warnings, nobody expected it to be so bad. The last major Ahr flood in Sinzig was in 2016. At that time, the level rose just over three meters. This time it was about five.

Vera is standing on the corner of Kantstrasse distributing vegetable soup.

Since there is no electricity, gas or drinking water in the flooded area, very few residents can cook for themselves.

At least the cellular network is working again.

Vera says that she runs a small pension in a neighboring town of Sinzig.

There she accommodated helpers and people who can no longer stay in their own homes.

The willingness to help is remarkable.

People have come from all over the republic to help with the clean-up work.

Volunteers run through the streets handing out sandwiches and cakes.

Four young women pull two wagons behind them.

You have sandwiches, fruit and coffee with you.

Coffee is particularly popular.