AS of Friday morning, the floods in East and South Belgium have led to the deaths of at least twelve people while five others are missing.

As a guest speaker on the radio, the president of the Walloon region Elio Di Rupo said he feared the death toll would get worse, reminding of the hundreds of people that were still trapped in their homes on Thursday.

Wallonia, a French-speaking region in southern Belgium, was particularly hard hit. More than 21,000 people were without electricity in the region, according to the Walloon electricity and gas distribution network manager (Ores), which reported the flooding of hundreds of distribution booths.

According to the federal police, dozens of road sections remained closed to traffic, as well as most of the railways in Wallonia.

In Liege, Belgium’s fourth most populous city, local authorities had called on thousands of residents of neighbourhoods along the Meuse to leave their homes in anticipation of a sharp rise in river levels on Thursday. — AFP