Germany sets out flood relief funding, hopes of finding survivors fade

BERLIN: A relief official dampened hopes on Wednesday of finding more survivors in the rubble of villages devastated by floods in western Germany, as a poll showed many Germans felt policymakers had not done enough to protect them.

At least 170 people died in last week's flooding, Germany's worst natural disaster in more than half a century, and thousands went missing. "We are still looking for missing persons as we clear roads and pump water out of basements," Sabine Lackner, deputy chief of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.