Severe thunderstorms cause flooding and disruptions in Brussels

Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper): The storms and heavy rain in Brussels flooded the area causing traffic problems. The bad weather will last until the evening of 1st August with a yellow warning for all of Belgium.

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What severe weather is expected in Belgium today?What impact has heavy rain had on Belgium’s emergency services?

Belgium had big storms and heavy rain for hours.In Brussels some tunnels closed because of floods and some streets got wet. The rain will keep going until the afternoon. The weather people gave a yellow warning for storms in all of Belgium from 31^st July afternoon until late 1^st August in the south. On 1^st August Brussels got hit with lots of rain, lightning and thunder.

What severe weather is expected in Belgium today?

On August 1^st the weather people said more storms might come until tonight. Some places could have big storms with hail and strong winds. They expect heavy rain in some areas but they’re not sure exactly where.They issued a yellow warning at the provincial level and there might be some flooding in certain spots.In Brussels the rain should stop around 3:00 PM but the yellow warning will last until 5:00 PM.In Brussels they’ve had a yellow warning since 9:00 PM on 31st July. Uccle got 28 mm of rain. The Brussels area is feeling the weather effects as David Dehenauw said on social media this morning. At 9:00 AM only the Bailli tunnel to the center and the Porte de Namur tunnel to the Basilica were closed but they opened around 9:30. Tunnels like Madou to the Basilique, Montgomery to the A12, Stéphanie to Midi and Georges-Henri and Vleurgat in both directions were closed too but reopened around 8:00 AM.

What impact has heavy rain had on Belgium’s emergency services?

The fire department has been busy with 33 operations due to heavy rain and 23 more are waiting as Walter Derieuw said. Most calls are about flooded roads and some flooded garages or basements at homes.The strong storm on July 9 the recent bad weather hasn’t affected public transport. STIB’s Guy Salon said there are only small delays on some connections but no service interruptions or closures. Some train issues happened earlier but SNCB’s Bart Crols said trains are mostly on time as of 09:00. In other areas the storm caused more damage. In Limburg lightning hit three houses causing a fire. In Flemish Brabant the fire department got 385 calls about flooded streets and basements. It has been said that the tunnel at Leuven station closed due to flooding.