(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, JUL 21 - Chancellor Angela Merkel's
cabinet will huddle Wednesday to approve a massive relief
package for rebuilding German regions destroyed in historic
flooding and better protect them in future. A week into the
region's worst flooding disaster in living memory, which has
killed at least 170 in Germany, and 201 in total in Europe, the
right-left "grand coalition" government will unblock aid for
demolished homes, businesses and vital infrastructure. Merkel
vowed on a visit to the badly hit medieval town of Bad
Muenstereifel on Tuesday that Berlin would come through to help
in the short and long term. "This was flooding that surpassed
our imagination when you see the destruction it wrought," Merkel
told reporters after touring what the Bild daily called the
"apocalyptic" wreckage of the 17,000-strong community in North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state. (ANSA-AFP).
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