Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CLIMATE CRISIS

Flights disrupted as climate activists blockade Berlin Airport runway

BER Airport temporarily closed both its runways Thursday afternoon as climate protestors breached secured areas.

Published: 24 November 2022 19:07 CET
Flights at BER airport
Aircraft of regional Turkish airline Anadolujet and British low-cost airline Easyjet are seen through a window as they are parked on the tarmac of Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt (BER) in Schoenefeld, southeast of the German capital on July 9, 2022. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)

Several flights scheduled to either take off or land at the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport starting at around 16:00 Thursday afternoon were disrupted after “Letzte Generation” or “Last Generation” activists gained access to the airport runway and began livestreaming their demonstration. 

The video shows activists cutting through a fence to access the runway, where they held up placards demanding a nationwide €9 “climate ticket” for public transport and a speed limit on Germany’s famous Autobahn. The controversial protest group has became widely known after throwing mashed potatoes a Claude Monet painting in Potsdam’s Barberini Museum back in October.

READ ALSO: WATCH: German climate activists pour mashed potatoes on €111 million Monet work

After airport staff became aware of the breach, BER Airport temporarily shut down and police arrived on the scene a short time later.

The protest sent flights to and from Berlin’s only airport into turmoil, with forced to circle in the air until getting clearance to land. 

Local reader Neil Tarrant was on a plane from Copenhagen to Berlin at the time.

“Around halfway through the flight, the plane turned around and we went back to Copenhagen. The captain explained we didn’t have enough fuel to circle over BER while waiting to see what would happen,” Tarrant tells The Local. “It’s been a long day. But my fellow passengers seem pretty positive, even joking about it. This might turn into a three-hour delay or so though.”

Officials aren’t so relaxed.

Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen told Der Tagesspiegel: “It’s a serious criminal offence that, in the worst case, also endangers human life,” he told the newspaper. “Anyone who intentionally puts others in danger for their worldview is not an activist, but a criminal.”

“Democratic norms and institutions have no meaning for this organization,” Berlin police union Benjamin Jendro said, adding that imprisonment for the activists was on the table.

At the time of writing, flights were once again able to land and take off from BER. However, authorites at the airport warned of continued delays. 

“Flight operations have resumed on both runways,” they wrote in a passenger update on the BER website. “However, there are still delays. We ask for your patience.”

Live updates to flight schedules can be found on the airport website. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

CLIMATE CRISIS

Where in Germany do homeowners face the greatest flood risk?

As extreme weather events are becoming more common and more costly, homeowners are struggling to insure their homes in certain places. The Local takes a look at insurance options and flood risks in Germany.

Published: 30 May 2024 17:24 CEST
Updated: 31 May 2024 13:52 CEST
Where in Germany do homeowners face the greatest flood risk?

Recent bouts of heavy rain caused flooding and landslides in Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of Bavaria. 

With more rain in the forecast for many parts of Germany in the coming days, these and other regions of the country may see further water and flood damages soon.

Extreme weather events are becoming both more common and more intense due to man-made climate change, and in some places this is creating havoc for homeowners. Recent reporting from the US, for example, shows that home insurance premiums have skyrocketed in some regions due to increased risks from extreme weather events.

Meanwhile, certain major insurance companies have stopped covering some regions entirely – causing some to prophesise the end of the insurance market as we know it.

While Germany doesn’t get the hurricanes or tornadoes that have made some regions in the US virtually uninsurable, it has suffered major flooding events in recent years and climate experts only expect these to get worse.

Which parts of Germany face the greatest flood risk?

A recent study by the German Insurance Association (GDV) found that 300,000 addresses in Germany are at risk of flooding.

According to the GDV study, which used public data to analyse the risk for 22.4 million addresses, the highest proportion of vulnerable properties was found in Saxony, where almost 3 percent were located in flood zones.

Thuringia and Rhineland-Palatinate had the next highest proportion of homes at risk, with 2.7 and 2 percent respectively.

But flood risk is better understood at the district level. The District of Cochem-Zell in Rhineland-Palatinate is the most affected with 10.5 percent of its addresses located in a flood zone. The nearby district of Koblenz is also a high-risk zone, as well as the district of Gera in Thuringia and Euskirchen in North-Rhine Westphalia.

Dresden is also a city of note for flood risk.

The state with the lowest proportion of homes in flood zones was Schleswig-Holstein. The city-states of Hamburg and Berlin were also among the least affected regions.

flood risk map

Title reads ‘current flood situation’. The graphic depicts a flood-risk map during a heavy storm on May 1st. Image: picture alliance/dpa/dpa Grafik | dpa-infografik GmbH

Most homes in Germany are not in risk zones

Generally speaking, the vast majority of homes in Germany are not considered to be in high-risk flood zones.

A spokesperson for Allianz, a leading insurance company, explained that in Germany insurers assess risk with a zoning system for flooding, backwater and heavy rain called the ZÜRS system that was developed by the GDV. 

In the ZÜRS system, each address in Germany can be assigned a classification (1-4) where class 1 is the lowest risk and class 4 is the highest risk. Class 2 suggests that a severe flood can be expected once in 100 years, class 3 suggests that a severe flood could occur once every ten to 100 years, and class 4 signifies that a severe flood could be expected every ten years.

Of about 22 million addresses classified by ZÜRS, 99.6 percent are in hazard classes 1 to 3. Specifically, 92.4 percent belong to class 1 with the lowest risk. Class 2 has 6.1 percent, class 3 has just 1.1 percent.

This leaves just 0.4 percent of German households in the highest hazard class 4, where flooding can be expected every decade.

How are flooding risks affecting house insurance?

General homeowner’s insurance (Wohn­gebäude­versicherung) or household contents insurance (Hausrat­versicherung) typically covers damages related to fire, water damage from burst pipes, burglary, robbery, vandalism following a break-in and sometimes storm and hail.

Whereas natural disasters caused by heavy rain, like flooding, landslides and avalanches are not covered by basic insurance, they may be covered by supplementary “extreme weather protection” (Extrem­wetter­schutz).

Major insurers in Germany have adopted a procedural change following the major flooding events of 2021, which killed nearly 200 people in Germany and cost billions in insured losses.

“Until 2022, we offered [extreme weather protection] in the so-called opt-in procedure,” a spokesperson for Allianz told The Local – meaning that customers would need to additionally select the added protection themselves to be covered.

“Since February 2022, our insurance offers for household contents and homeowner’s insurance have been changed so that natural hazard protection is offered automatically and our customers must consciously deselect it if they do not want it,” they said.

Is anywhere in Germany uninsurable?

Insurance claims do seem to be getting more expensive for insurance providers. 

In 2023, Allianz spent a total of €987 million on losses caused by natural hazards in Germany, as opposed to €627 million in 2022.

The company attributes the cost increase partially to the devastating storms in August 2023, along with claims becoming comparatively expensive due to inflation.

However, Allianz suggests that for now homeowners in Germany shouldn’t have a hard time securing the insurance that they need. 

Even in class 4 flood zones, the company suggests that it examines the risk individually and works with higher deductibles where necessary.

However, there are some places where homeowners may have a hard time getting flood protection.

“There are still municipalities that allow building in a flood-prone area,” the Allianz representative said. “And there are houses in places such as Passau that are regularly flooded. These owners know this and take appropriate structural precautions.”

SHOW COMMENTS