Floods generate four decades’ worth of rubbish in German valley

People clean their homes in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, after floods in July (Michael Probst/AP)

Hundreds of thousands of tons of rubbish have been removed from a valley in western Germany since it was devastated by flooding in mid-July, equivalent to four decades’ worth of waste, authorities said.

More than 180 people died in Germany and hundreds more were injured in the July 14-15 floods, which also claimed lives in neighbouring Belgium.