Massive rainfalls on Wednesday have caused damage, casualties and transportation impairments in Germany’s North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) state, posing a threat to steel mill deliveries.

The floods have rendered roads impassable, caused train cancellations, and filled streams and rivers up to their maximum marking point. At least 20 people have been killed in the floods, civilians as well as firemen and other emergency staff, it was reported on Thursday afternoon. The most damage has been caused in the Eifel mountains in southern NRW, along the Belgian/Luxembourg border, but also on the Ruhr.

Kallanish understands that the place hit worst by the rainfalls is Hagen on the eastern end of the Ruhr Valley, with a water volume of 230 litres per m². Hagen and its district Hohenlimburg is the home of most of Germany’s specialised cold-rollers, which mainly serve the automotive industry, like Wälzholz, Bilstein, or Boecker+Wender Stahl (BWS). It is also home to Hoesch Hohenlimburg, thyssenkrupp’s mill for rolling medium wide strip.

Apart from coil, another product group whose dispatches could suffer delays is special bar qualities produced by Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, which has plants in Hagen and nearby Witten.

According to radio reports, some people working at steel plants in Hagen had to be rescued by boat, but it remained unclear from which companies. One fireman was killed in Werdohl, the headquarters of alloys producer VDM, whose works fire brigade was involved in emergency measures in the region.

The big mills of thyssenkrupp, along with Hüttenwerke Krupp-Mannesmann (HKM) and a long products site of ArcelorMittal are located in Duisburg further west along the Ruhr. As water levels in the wider region have risen overall, they will be affected to some degree, too.