<Anchor> The
number of victims of the great flood that hit Western Europe last week continues to rise. In Germany alone, at least 166 people have died and more than 1,000 are missing. Meanwhile, in North America across the Atlantic Ocean, an unusual heat wave continues.
Reporter Han Se-hyeon reports.
<Reporter> The
entire village is trapped in a pile of mud washed away by heavy rain.
Water bombs smashed the ground, houses were torn in half, and village bridges and tunnel roads were cut apart as if they had been bombed.
It is the trace that the first great flood in 100 years has scratched the whole of Germany.
So far, 166 people have died in Germany alone, and at least 1,000 people have lost contact.
[Horst Seehofer / German Interior Minister: Today we are experiencing an unimaginable tragedy. A catastrophe has come.]
31 people have died in this flood in neighboring Belgium as well.
More than 50 of the missing persons have been confirmed alive or dead, but more than 70 are still unreachable.
There are many places where electricity and communication are cut off, so the search operation is not easy.
Infrastructure has been swept away by the extraordinary flood, and the cost of restoration is expected to reach astronomical levels.
While continental Europe groaned with torrential rains, North America across the Atlantic Ocean experienced record heatwaves.
In western Canada, heatwaves approaching 50 degrees Celsius have killed more than 700 people in a week, and over 70 large-scale wildfires have followed in the western United States.
[Bob Ward/Policy Director, Grantham Climate Environment Research Institute, UK: If we continue to emit greenhouse gases as we do now, climate change will become more serious.]
Experts worry that global abnormal climate events may affect global food supply and demand I did.