Heavy rain, fierce storms crash down on North Rhine-Westphalia

The Wuppertal city center saw around 70 centimeters (about 30 inches) of rainfall on Tuesday afternoon, disrupting all traffic and grinding the entire city's rail system to a halt. There were even reports of several cars hitting manhole covers that had blown out of the ground. "The entire city is under water," a spokesman for the German Weather Service (DWD) said.

Violent gales of wind also caused a petrol station roof to cave in near Wuppertal. According to authorities, at least 14 cars were parked under the roof when it collapsed, although no one was reported injured.

Part of a university building roof in Wuppertal also collapsed in on itself on Tuesday. "According to initial estimates, the extent of the damage is considerable," Lambert T. Koch, a professor at the university, told German press agency dpa. The building's cellar and ground floor also suffered from the flooding. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident.

In Solingen, commemorations marking the 25th anniversary of a deadly racist attack on a Turkish family had to be postponed as storms bellowed overhead. Around 300 participants had gathered for the event, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu. As the downpour became increasingly fierce, visitors were eventually told to leave the village.

Shoppers in Aachen were forced to abandon the city's main shopping center as rainwater poured in, flooding the shop floors. Downpours also caused a short circuit at an electricity exchange, leading to a temporary power outage in parts of the city. According to German broadcaster WDR, meteorologists registered over 11,500 instances of lightning in the space of just an hour on Tuesday afternoon.