Belgium's king and queen visited the town on Friday wading through flooded streets.The government set next Tuesday as a day of mourning and decided to tone down festivities for Belgian National Day the day after.Interior minister Annelies Verlinden said 20 people had lost their lives with a further 20 missing.The crisis centre urged people in the affected areas to avoid all travel.Belgium has called on the European Union's civil protection mechanism helicopters and rescue personnel.It also received help from Luxembourg and the Netherlands despite these countries also suffering from flooding have come to aid the search.Over 20,000 people in the southern region Wallonia were without electricity Large parts of the rail network in southern Belgium were unusable with certain sections of track swept away.Additional reporting and writing by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Philippa Fletcher Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved panic attacks: Belgian flood survivors struggleSamuel Petrequin Full Screen1 / 15Previous photoNext photoResident Patrick Martin and a friend in front of their flood damaged home in the La Brouck neighborhood of Trooz Patrick Martin and his companion Cindy Lacroix still find it hard to sleep after they feared for their lives during deadly floods nearly two weeks ago isolated and trapped in the top floor of their house for two days before they were rescued on a small boat by firefighters (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)A resident makes a mobile phone call as he sits in front of historical photographs rescued from flood waters at the local church Uncontrollable water destroyed approximately half of the homes in the small village of Trooz leaving tons of debris in its wake in one of the most violent natural disasters to hit Belgium in a century (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)A resident watches from his window as a crane takes away damaged personal belongings after flooding in Drolenval has announced a 2 billion euro plan for reconstruction in the storm hit region but money alone won't cover for all the losses suffered by the area For many residents the trauma they experienced will forever stay in their minds (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)A sign is put up in a window with masking tape and a white cloth hangs outside after flooding in Trooz With electricity and gas cut off and communication lines damaged the working-class neighborhood of La Brouck and its brick terraced houses looks like a ghost town Since the water receded many have left to find shelter with friends while others have decided to stay (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Two residents clean mud off the street near their flood damaged home in Trooz a man stands on a bridge and surveys the damage after flooding in Pepinster File)A volunteer speaks with a local resident at a local church which has been converted in a flood victims aide center in Trooz (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Damaged cars lay in riverbed after flooding in Drolenval Uncontrollable water destroyed several towns (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)The side of a house is collapsed in the village of Trooz Three people have been left dead in the small village and nearly half of it's residents have sustained damage to their homes (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Resident Carine Lacroix holds up a doll she rescued from her flood damaged home in the La Brouck neighborhood of Trooz Lacroix and her companion still find it hard to sleep after they feared for their lives during deadly floods nearly two weeks ago (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Resident Eric Mouque speaks with the Associated Press as he cleans up his flood damaged home in the La Brouck neighborhood of Trooz The Mouque family are among hundreds of survivors in the small town of Trooz experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Resident Eric Mouque walks by his wife Cindy Mouque as they take a rest after cleaning up their flood damaged home in the La Brouck neighborhood of Trooz The Mouque's are among hundreds of survivors in the small town of Trooz experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Resident Alan Mereschal stands in what is left of his home after flooding in Vaux-sous-Chevremont in an effort to help himself psychologically during the flooding turned to helping others in using his language skills to help translate between residents and rescue personnel (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Two figures from a holiday creche lay in the mud in front of a damaged school in Trooz books and other personal effects lay damaged by floodwaters in Purgatoire has announced a 2 billion euro plan for reconstruction in the storm hit region but money alone won't cover for all the losses suffered by the region (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Copyright 2021 The Associated Press TROOZ – Visions of cars being swept away in a raging current keep coming back to trouble Eric Mouqué. His wife, Cindy, gets triggered by the slightest noise. So when her husband turns on the hose to clean a few things, all she can think about are those tumultuous floodwaters that ripped away homes, streets, businesses and entire neighborhoods two weeks ago in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The couple's neighbor, Carine Lacroix, can't sleep at night, remembering how her and her companion feared for their lives during the floods. Isolated and trapped in the top floor of their house, it took two days before they were rescued on a small boat by firefighters. In her nerve-wracking nightmares, she is desperately trying to keep the floods out of her home or sees one of her cats drowning before her eyes. All three are among hundreds of survivors in the small Belgian town of Trooz who are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. “I've been traumatized for life, this is not something you recover from," Eric Mouqué, a lumberjack, told The Associated Press during a visit to the eastern town. “We will hear these noises for the rest of our lives. The sound of the water, it's atrocious." Three people were killed in Trooz after the Vesdre River spilled its banks amid heavy rainfall. Overall, 38 people died across Belgium - one person was still missing Thursday, according to police - and at least 182 people lost their lives during the floods in Germany. In Belgium, the uncontrollable flooding was one of the most violent natural disasters to hit in a century. Fast-moving waters destroyed several towns and left tons of debris in their wake. With electricity and gas cut off and communication lines damaged, the working-class neighborhood of La Brouck and its brick-terraced houses looks like a ghost town. Since the waters receded, many people have left to find shelter with relatives or friends, but the Mouqués decided to stay. Cleaning up the wreckage and restoring an appearance of normality remains a tall order, but hundreds of volunteers have been coming from across Belgium and abroad to help. “It’s a big, big disaster. We’re in trouble, but we’re so well-supported," Eric Mouqué said. “We’ve got food on all sides, we’ve got drinks on all sides, we’ve got hot meals. We’ve got everything you can imagine to help us." In the end, recovering from the psychological shock may be the more complicated task. Psychologist Etienne Vendy said the trauma induced by exposure to a natural disaster can have long-lasting effects. “For all the people who went through hell, it will remain forever in their body and mind," he said. At the helm of the social aid center in Trooz, Vendy and his team have been providing psychological assistance to those seeking a benevolent ear. He said his task is to identify victims who need hospital treatment and to talk with the others as much as possible. “I think it works pretty well, because a lot of people ask for consultations. Sometimes it’s just to talk. It’s not to do psychotherapy," he said. “We’re really in front-line psychology. It’s about allowing people to let out their rage and their fear." La Brouck is among the most affected spots in the flood-stricken town of 8,600 people. According to Trooz Mayor Fabien Beltran, nearly half of the population has been hit by the disaster. “The first emergency is rehousing, and providing people with food and cleaning products for their homes and for themselves so that they can get back to a normal life as soon as possible," he said. The Walloon government in charge in the French-speaking region has announced a 2 billion-euro plan for the reconstruction. To help citizens cope with urgent needs before insurance companies pay out claims, every household affected by the catastrophe can be granted interest-free loans of 2,500 euros ($2,960) to cover basic needs. Still, that money won't cover all the losses suffered by Alan Mereschal. When the floodwaters burst through a side door and poured into the first floor of his house in the nearby village of Chaudfontaine, he ran up the spiral staircase to the second floor, sat on his bed, and hoped for the best. The next morning after the deluge was over he peered downstairs. The floodwaters had receded but all of his furniture, a new television and nearly all of his belongings had disappeared. “The water came in one door and went out the other and took everything with it,” Mereschal said. “I had a car in the driveway, that’s gone too. I have no idea where everything ended up.” Mereschal was uncertain when asked if he would stay in his house. “I would really like too, it depends if they let me," he said. "If not, I will move to an apartment somewhere and believe me, it won’t be located on the first floor.” Experts say such floods will become more frequent and severe due to climate change. But many residents in the Vesdre valley believe the human mishandling of river systems amplified the flooding. Several specialists in hydrology have suggested that lowering the water level at the Vesdre dam earlier, after forecasters had issued dire weather warnings, would have prevented a lot of damage in nearby towns. An investigative judge was appointed this week to lead an inquiry into the flooding, which will examine whether there is evidence to charge anyone with involuntary manslaughter by failure of care or precaution. “We want answers to understand what actually took place," said Stevens Tagadirt, whose house in the town of Vaux-sous-Chèvremont has been badly damaged. Tagadirt is a founding member of the group People against Flows, which is asking Belgian authorities to shed the light on the disaster. “We want to understand how they dealt with the dams," he said. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines TV Listings Email Newsletters RSS Feeds Contests and Rules Contact Us Careers at WDIV Closed Captioning / Audio Description Public File Current EEO Report Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell My Info FCC Applications Copyright © 2025 ClickOnDetroit.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. It has been two weeks since the torrents of water trapped Nadia Neqrat on the first floor of a house in Belgium’s eastern Trooz district, and she still has nightmares. Now — with the help of relatives, neighbours and volunteers — she is among the residents trying to rebuild their lives. The devastation from the worst floods here in living memory, which left at least 41 dead in Belgium and 180 in neighbouring Germany, is still strewn all around. Broken furniture is piled up, debris litters the streets and the local school has been badly hit. “It was really horrible, I don’t wish anyone to go through this,” Neqrat, 39, tells AFP, as her sister-in-law helps her to clear up her house. “I have nightmares, but I feel most sorry for the children who have been through this.” Neqrat was at a neighbour’s house when the waters came — barely giving them enough time to grab some food and make it to the first floor. They were then stranded there for around 48 hours waiting for someone to come and rescue them. “But no one came. We had to make do. We felt abandoned,” she said. – ‘We saw death’ – Piles of tinned foods, pasta and drinks now stand in the nearby church where the pews used to be. Volunteers hand out coffee and croissants on the church square to locals who sometimes cannot hold back their tears. “We saw death up close,” says Jocelyne Chacon, 63. She “lost everything” when the water inside her home rose to a height of 3.6 metres (12 feet). Priscilla Breckpot, a nurse, confides that her “biggest trauma” was being separated from her children after she went to help her parents. “My kids were screaming, my neighbours were trying to reassure them. My partner tried to go with a rescue team but the boat overturned,” she recounts. Eventually the children were reached after 24 hours. During her anxious wait, Breckpot says she saw a dead body being carried along by the water. The local authorities are offering psychological counselling to residents. But Breckpot insists she is too busy, what with the insurance claims to file and clean-up to finish. “We are in an absolute disaster which will last for years. At the same time we are faced with absolute generosity”, says local priest Pierre Hannosset. A woman, who has travelled two hours to get there, arrives with a basket full of provisions and leaves it at the church. A group from the Flemish-speaking region of Flanders goes door to door to offer people bread and water. Annick Troch a local municipal worker gave up a week of her summer holiday to come and help the recovery efforts. “Psychologically it was tough on the first day, but then we see the smiles of people seeing us arrive,” she says. Mayor Fabien Beltran, whose office was destroyed, welcomes any assistance the area can get. “Among my staff, people are starting to crack. The task is too enormous,” he says. “We need help from the outside.” To assist the victims, a medical bus parks up every afternoon to help locals requiring medicines or nursing injuries. “People come to treat their wounds, to renew a prescription, and also to talk,” explains Henri Bournameau, a retired general practitioner manning the temporary facility. “But I believe that the big psychological problems will come later.” David Gibson, 61, placed the unusual word on the Scrabble board. “That's 39 points,” he said, scribbling the score on a pad. I never doubted trooz was a word; I wouldn't dare question a Scrabble champion. After all, Gibson, a math professor at Spartanburg Methodist College, is the highest-rated Scrabble player in North America. He won a national tournament in 1994 and finished second in a five-day tournament just three weeks ago in Orlando, Fla. He knows his stuff. Up to this point, I was actually playing him pretty close. I opened the game with “hexed” and racked up 40 quick points. David said the player who goes first has a slight advantage, winning about 53 percent of the time. A few plays later, I scored a “bingo,” meaning I used all my letters in one turn and earned 50 additional points. But now, with the help of “trooz,” Gibson pulled way ahead. “It is like a shortened form of trousers,” he said, his face buried behind the official Scrabble dictionary, tattered and frayed from frequent use. I nodded, as if I already knew. Of course, I had never heard the word in my life. We were playing the board game at Gibson's home in the Hillcrest neighborhood, inside what he calls the “Scrabble room.” The board stays out on a table all the time, and he and his wife, Nancy, play a game or two every night. “She's actually a pretty good player, and she beats me occasionally,” he said. A clock sits beside the game board. In competition Scrabble, each player has 25 minutes to finish the game. When a play is made, they stop the clock. We didn't use the clock during our game; if we had, the outcome would have been much worse. Gibson started playing the popular crossword game when he was a kid. “I thank my parents for bringing me up into the game,” he said, as he studied the tiles on his rack. “I had two sisters who are a little bit younger than me, and the three of us and my two parents would keep standings. This was when we were just starting out in elementary school.” But he didn't start playing in tournaments until about 1983. He actually credits the Herald-Journal for helping him find out about competitions. After he moved to Spartanburg in 1975 and started teaching at SMC, he said he would get up every morning and read the paper from cover to cover, just looking for new words. “One Friday morning, after I'd been doing that for a few years, I got to the B section and at the bottom of the page there was a picture of an elderly lady sitting in her chair with the official Scrabble dictionary in her hands,” he said. “In the article, it talked about how she would go down to Atlanta once a year and play in a Scrabble tournament.” He didn't know there was such a thing. He said he called the woman from the story and then went to her house that night and played three games. “We formed a friendship and eventually began playing in tournaments together.” As he sat in the chair across from me, he would occasionally shuffle the seven tiles in front of him. Sometimes when his plays didn't score a lot, he would say it was a “defensive move” designed to block the board. “I could have played something else and scored more, but with this, it limits what you can do,” he said. Gibson said the recent tournament in Orlando was grueling and extremely difficult. “Everybody is so good, and it's just like every game and every turn is just drama,” he said. More than 350 competitors from 41 states and five countries took part in the five-day competition. “We played like, seven games a day for the first four days, and then three games on the last day,” he said. “And I was always up near the top for most of the tournament; I had a pretty good run. One day, I was 7-0.” But he eventually lost the final match to Nigel Richards, the No. 1 player in the world, whom Gibson describes as a “dictionary.” As Nancy sat on the couch across the room and listened to Gibson speak, she said, “He was so close this time.” When a player runs out of letters on his or her rack, the player gets the points on the opponent's rack, times two. “I had a word in the last game, and I was 98 percent sure it was good, but if it wasn't good, I would lose my turn,” he said. “So I didn't play it. It turns out the word was good, and if I would have just played it, I would have won.” The word was “northing,” meaning a movement toward the north. He said he wakes up some nights and thinks about the word, wishing he would have played it. “I will probably never get a chance to get so close again.” He won $3,000 for second place. When he won in 1994, he took home $25,000. The next year, he took home $50,000 in a Las Vegas tournament. Gibson says his knowledge of math helps him play Scrabble. “There's definitely a math to it, and you will find that a lot of the best players are math people,” he said. “You're constantly considering the odds and the probability, it's a 15-by-15 playing field. It's a math game really, but of course it helps to know words. And I love words, too.” If you want to get good at the game, Gibson offers some suggestions: -- Learn all the two-letter and three-letter words. -- Download the computer program Quackle, and play games against the computer on any level you want. “I play with the computer on championship level, and they don't miss any words,” he said. “It's quite humbling.” -- Find a good player to play against. “I'm lucky and blessed to have Nancy to play with every night.” -- Save your blank tiles for a bingo or something you can score a lot with. -- Learn anagrams — different words within a combination of letters. During our game, David spoke about anagrams a lot. In one tournament, he had the word “violated,” but he realized he had an anagram and chose to play “dovetail” instead. Homes ripped apart by floods, floating cars and piles of rubble and debris are some of the scenes seen in the areas near the river Vesdre in Belgium ITV News flew a helicopter along the Belgian-German river to assess the damage wreaked by heavy floods across western Europe More than 190 people have died in the floods and searches remain underway for the missing Thousands in western Germany eastern Belgium and the Netherlands found themselves homeless after their dwellings were destroyed or deemed to be at risk dikes on swollen rivers were at risk of collapsing and crews raced to reinforce flood barriers ITV News flew along a river route in Belgium to assess the damage wreaked by heavy floods German officials defended their preparations for flooding but conceded they will need to learn lessons from the disaster The search for more victims and the clean-up of the mess left behind by the floods continued on Monday as floodwaters receded German economy minister Peter Altmaier told the Bild newspaper: “As soon as we have provided the immediate aid that stands at the forefront now we will have to look at whether there were things that didn’t go well “That isn’t about finger-pointing – it’s about improvements for the future.” the head of Germany’s civil protection agency said the country’s weather service had “forecast relatively well” and the country was well-prepared for flooding on its major rivers it is often not possible to say what place will be hit with what quantity” of water He said his agency sent 150 warning notices out via apps and media He promised to investigate where sirens sounded and where they did not officials said municipalities had been alerted and acted on the warnings of floods But the state’s interior minister, Roger Lewentz, who visited the hard-hit village of Schuld with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday He said local authorities “tried very quickly to react" He continued: “But this was an explosion of the water in moments … You can have the very best preparations and warning situations (but) if warning equipment is destroyed and carried away with buildings Angela Merkel 'grieves' as at least 60 dead following major flooding in Germany Rescuers and police officers with a dog look for victims in a flood BRUSSELS - The southern Belgian town of Dinant was hit by the heaviest floods in decades on Saturday after a two-hour thunderstorm turned streets into torrential streams that washed away cars and pavements but did not kill anyone Dinant was spared the deadly floods 10 days ago that killed 37 people in southeast Belgium and many more in Germany but the violence of Saturday's storm surprised many "I have been living in Dinant for 57 years and I've never seen anything like that," Richard Fournaux the former mayor of the town on the Meuse river and birthplace of the 19th century inventor of the saxophone Rainwater gushing down steep streets swept away dozens of cars pavements and whole sections of tarmac as inhabitants watched in horror from windows There was no precise estimate of the damage with town authorities predicting only that it would be "significant" in the small town of Anhee a few kilometres north of Dinant but a lot remains to be done to get the situation back to normal in eastern Belgium The official death toll has been adjusted to 31 while 163 people are missing or "probably missing" 9 in 10 municipalities have been impacted by the floods The Walloon PM Elio Di Rupo thinks the damage will amount to hundreds of millions of euros 240 of the 262 municipalities have been touched Elio Di Rupo told reporters during a visit to Ensival He repeated that the damage is enormous: "It will take hundred of millions of euros or even billions to repair this" "What happened is beyond comprehension Weather forecasters said it was not possible to predict this About 17,000 families in Liège province are still without electricity which are among the hardest hit municipalities it could take a week before electricity supplies are back to normal an estimated 20,000 households were still without electricity on Sunday morning Belgium to apply for financial aid from Europe: "It will take hundreds of millions to repair the damage" About 20 villages in Wallonia have no drinking water About 2,000 tap water hubs suffered an impact from the floodings but it will take more time - a couple of days  - to repair others People are busy with cleaning up their houses All the material which they can no longer use is being put on the street where cranes are putting it into containers to take it away Some mayors expect a shortage of containers soon About 300 soldiers are helping in different provinces Militarymen were also searching houses in Pepinster today The official death toll stands at 31 at present while 163 people can't be reached - they are officially missing but it is hoped that a majority is okay and that they can't be reached as communication lines have been damaged Rail infrastructure has also been damaged across Wallonia spokeswoman for the rail infrastructure company Infrabel said it can take weeks before rail services in Wallonia are back to normal The map below shows the impact on Walloon railways and the different time frames to get things repaired The size of the impact can clearly be seen in the minicipality of Pepinster in Liège province: