Dozens of Frankfurt Flights Scrapped as Germany Clears Up After Storm
Frankfurt — Dozens of flights were cancelled at Germany's Frankfurt Airport after heavy rain led to flooding on parts of the tarmac and an hours-long suspension of ground handling operations.
The accumulation of large amounts of water on Wednesday evening - including on the apron area, where planes are parked, loaded and unloaded - forced the flights to be cancelled, delayed or diverted, a spokesman for Frankfurt Airport told dpa on Thursday.
Ground handling at Germany's busiest airport was completely suspended for more than two hours, meaning 34 aircraft could not take off on time on Wednesday evening.
Estimates put the number of passengers affected at four-digits.
The German Weather Service (DWD) had issued a thunderstorm warning for all of the western state of Hessen, where Frankfurt is located, on Wednesday.
Following the storms, a heatwave is approaching Germany but the risk of severe weather will ease in the coming days.
"The big bang is over," said Felix Dietzsch at the DWD forecasting centre in Offenbach.
The fierce thunderstorms around Frankfurt had an "extraordinarily high lightning frequency that put on a real light show," Dietzsch added.
A torrent of water also ran through the Frankfurt-Süd underground station.
In the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a heavy thunderstorm led to flooded streets and cellars in some cities in the Ruhr area.
In Gelsenkirchen, people had to be rescued from their vehicles because several motorway underpasses were flooded.
There were also reports of isolated overnight flooding in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia, mostly affecting building basements.
©2023 dpa GmbH. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
