© Domingos Oliveira / RTL
Heavy rain showers overnight left the town of Larochette drowning in mud on Friday morning, forcing several road closures.
The centre of the town was engulfed in mud and stones following a mudslide from the surrounding hills. At around 6am on Friday, the ACL issued a warning that one road was shut in Larochette due to the mudslide. But several hours later, residents posted messages on social media warning that other streets in the town were inaccessible as a result of the inclement weather.
The area around Larochette's main intersection and surrounding streets was sealed off early on Friday morning. Mayor Mirko Martellini said a number of basements had been flooded on Thursday night, requiring fire fighters to pump out the water, while municipal employees were working on cleaning up the streets.
"I was contacted by the emergency services at around 3.30am to warn of the flooding," Martellini told RTL. "At that point, the fire brigade was already pumping water from cellars. It transpired that water, mud and stones were sliding down from the 'Scheerbach' stream, causing all the mess."
As for the number of households affected by the mudslide, the mayor was unable to give further details when speaking to RTL.
"Some cellars are full of mud and water, some are worse than others. Fortunately no one was hurt, that is the most important thing. So now all our technical services are working to clear things up as quickly as possible."
MeteoLux had issued a thunderstorm warning and a yellow alert on Thursday, warning of extremely heavy rainfall in a short space of time.
Larochette is among the areas in Luxembourg which are regularly affected by flooding, particularly due to its geographical location in a valley. The mayor said there were plans underway with the municipality of Heffingen and the Roads and Bridges Administration, as well as the water management administration, to prevent the recurring floods in future.
On Friday afternoon it was announced that the CR118 through Larochette had been cleared and reopened to traffic.
