Severe thunderstorms in western and central Germany yesterday evening caused major disruption to air traffic in Frankfurt as well as flooding in many streets, parking lots and underground areas across the region.

“Severe storms in the Rhine-Main region in Frankfurt have caused flight delays and cancellations. Twenty-three planes had to land at other airports,” a spokesman for Frankfurt airport, one of Europe’s largest, told AFP.

Videos posted on social media show the airport areas flooded.

“The situation is expected to probably stabilize during the day. There are still passengers who have to board a flight other than the one they had planned for,” he added.

“A total of 90 flights were cancelled, 34 planes failed to take off before midnight (ie: before the time after which night flights are prohibited),” the spokesman added.

The passengers of the planes that could not take off spent the night at the airport, in hundreds of ranches set up for this reason, or in a hotel.

Everywhere in central and western Germany the same scenes were recorded with flooded roads and vehicles stranded in the water with their drivers barefoot.

In Gelsenkirchen, a city in the Ruhr in western Germany, water reached one meter on some streets. The rescuers were continuing operations this morning to help the victims, according to a statement from the fire department.

In the most affected areas of this city of more than 250,000 inhabitants, many trees fell on vehicles and “the roads in some places could only be passed with inflatable boats”.