On July 14 and 15, lives were shaken to their foundations. A €50 million emergency package from the government is intended to help people secure the basis of their livelihoods. The Journal got a first impression of the situation of six people affected, in order to evaluate the impact later on.
Between spectacular drone images of flooded villages, promises of millions in aid and debates at the highest political level about the seriousness with which climate change should be addressed, it is easy to abstract individual fates after the "once in a century flood". Even if it is actually precisely these individual lives that are at stake. Only a few metres of altitude lay between a rainy day, some damaged furniture and a devastating restart in last week. While there were no deaths in Luxembourg, one does not have to look far across the borders to see that things could have turned out very differently.
After the flood, it did not take long for insurance companies and the government to promise their help to those affected, with "simple and direct procedures". How much of the promised aid will arrive, and how uncomplicated the procedures really will be, remains to be seen. According to the ACA's press release, the 6,000 or so applications received by the insurance companies so far have already forced them to raise their estimate of damages to 120 million euros. For many people, the decisions of the insurance companies will be a matter of existence. The Lëtzebuerger Journal talked to six people who were affected in different ways about the long road after a natural disaster: What is left for them, what are their next steps, and what happens next?
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