Inside the unprepared city that ‘has to change’ after devastating floods leave lives in ruin
Verviers is nicknamed the water capital of its region because the city used the River Meuse to build its wealth in the textile industry.
The river flows through the centre of the Belgian town.
That’s why there was so much damage when it exploded over its banks a few days ago, turning the streets into torrents of water flowing several metres deep.
The town of Verviers is focused around the river
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The city, like so many others, simply wasn’t prepared.
As Verviers residents wearily clean the stinking mud out of their ruined homes, thoughts are turning to the fragility of the infrastructure that supports life here; how quickly all the fabric of our modern world was ripped apart.
There is still no power, no cabled internet, patchy mobile phone signal, and in some areas, no fresh water.
Many of the roads and bridges are shut, and the pavements are piled high with rubbish.
Nameer Laghzaoui takes us into his ruined pizza shop. Piles of gluey flour line the floor. He shows us the basement – all his wiring and fuse boxes sit, dripping.
Nameer Laghzaoui’s pizzeria, Pizza Grano, has no power or water
The water destroyed the kitchen
He said: “It is all gone. Ruined.”
I ask if he wants to go, move further away from the water.
“No, I will stay, I have to.”
His whole life savings are in this business, and he has no choice but to wait for insurance to pay out and hope it doesn’t happen again.
A few metres away we find Louis Pirout working hard to find out just how badly the town’s power supply and wiring has been damaged.
His job is to restore TV services
Louis Pirout checks the power to the town of Verviers in Belgium
A destroyed car in Verviers. Pic: Associated Press
Was the town ready, I asked?
“No. Absolutely not.
“We are a crowded town around the river which is why it was so bad.”
He doesn’t know how long it will take to get everything back on line.
There are huge holes in the pavements everywhere, exposing mangled pipes and cabling. It doesn’t look like a quick job.
Up and down the streets there are people delivering bottles of fresh water.
One of the reasons for that is businesses nearby aren’t open to sell anything.
There are holes in the pavement around Verviers
People are not abandoning their homes however
We ventured into an all but destroyed supermarket to find the owner, Francoise Wilmain, surveying the damage.
He cannot see how he will be able to reopen.
“It was my business, my life, it is finished.”
On one street closest to the river Meuse a huge clean up is underway. Mountains of furniture, pots, books pile high under the hot sun as people salvage what they can.
Valerie Corman told us how she thought the city didn’t give them enough warning.
The supermarket was destroyed during the floods
She said: “The city is going to have to change.”
She also said that she hopes during the rebuilding process, they find a way to create better flood defences, so if it happens again, the damage won’t be so great.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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