Disaster Tourism illegal in Holland: No place is safe anymore

Holland officially disappears from tourist maps
Holland officially disappears from tourist maps
Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

This week’s devastating floods in the German State of Northrhine Westphalia triggered another big debate on climate change.
The disaster is also taken a toll in neighboring Belgium and Holland.
Disaster tourism is becoming a problem for first responders.

  1. Residents in the State of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany will never forget the horrors of Thursday night when torrential rain killed and destroyed entire villages. A German dam remains at risk of collapse.
  2. Rivers burst their banks and washed away buildings in Belgium and Germany, where at least 160+ are dead and 1,300 remained missing.
  3. Homes and streets in the Netherlands are flooded and thousands of residents in Roermond and Venlo were forced to evacuate their homes.

A lady with a blue plastic bag in her hand from Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler told local reporters: “We have nothing left” when she was trying to get to a shelter with her pajama. The water came in minutes and left a wide area of destruction the country has not experienced before.

A reader told eTurboNews: Here in Germany, many have died in floods, hundreds are missing, thousands have lost their homes. It’s devastating. This is the climate crisis unraveling in one of the richest parts of the world — which for a long time thought it would be “safe”. No place is “safe” anymore

Many roads are destroyed, public transport came to a stillstand in many towns. Some residents are unable to get out of their villages

Electricity and phone service are interrupted in the most affected towns and villages.

People are rescued by helicopters from rooftops and trees. Dams are on the brink of collapse. Firefighters, the German army, and other first responders had been working around the clock to save people.

In addition, citizens had organized themselves to aid others. Many of these citizens groups are well organized and are now playing an important role in rescue efforts.

Local radio stations and newspapers provide account numbers for those that want to donate money.

Celine and Philippe from the small village of Leichlingen between Duesseldorf and Cologne just got married last week.

Instead of a quiet week at home to celebrate their honeymoon, they now help fellow citizens in need. Today they assisted a 90-year-old lady trapped in her apartment.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected to tour the affected areas on Saturday. German Chancellor Merkel, who just returned from the United States will visit the disaster area on Sunday.

Just across the border, in the Dutch Province of Limburg, a disaster was declared and sirens were heard when a dyke breached.

A hospital in the Dutch town of Venray, including 200 patients, will be evacuated because of flood risk.

Dutch police in Venlo and Roermond are issuing fines to disaster tourists. More and more visitors from other cities in the Netherlands and neighboring countries had been driving to the disaster region to take photos and post them on social media.

This is now illegal in Holland. It greatly disturbs rescue efforts, and invades the privacy of local people.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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