Lower Rhine

Widespread and partially extreme precipitation in December 1993 led to flooding along the Middle and Lower Rhine at Christmas 1993, leading to several fatalities and inundations in three federal states.

Rudi Schreiner, the president and co-owner of AmaWaterways, a river cruise company with a fleet of 26 ships, said that when water levels in the Lower Rhine are too low, cruise passengers are taken on an excursion to a nearby town by bus and then brought back to a spot on the river where water levels are higher.

At the moment, barges on the lower Rhine - an important route for transporting coal from Rotterdam inland to German steelmakers and power producers - are operating at less than half capacity.

Rainwater draining into the Rhine, where shipping traffic was partly suspended, was expected to test flood defences along the river, including in Cologne, on the lower Rhine, and Koblenz, where the Rhine and Moselle merge.

By Jan’s design, we followed the same route taken by the allies during Operation Berlin, when 2,400 soldiers were evacuated across the Lower Rhine in September 1944.