The flood disaster in parts of Germany is unfortunately also accompanied by fake news. One of these false reports concerns the Steinbach Dam.

We already reported that the Steinbachtalsperre in the Euskirchen district was severely affected by flooding. At that time there was already a rumor that the dam had broken. Residents in the region questioned the police on Twitter about a possible dam breach. It is reported there that panic broke out in Ahrweiler because of this ( compare ).

Now the city of Erftstadt is reporting on July 18th. on Facebook and reported that other false reports on this topic are circulating!

“Fake news! Steinbach Dam rupture. There is currently a rumor circulating that the Steinbach Dam has broken. This is a hoax! The Steinbach dam is intact.” ( Source )

Where did these rumors actually come from?

On July 17th In another case, we reported that people were driving through the streets with megaphones and spreading these rumors. According to reports, residents themselves are sometimes fleeing their homes in panic.

A Mimikama team member is also affected! 

Beate from the Mimikama team said that she had heard such a megaphone announcement herself, but that she didn't understand the content at first. Shortly afterwards, your son got in touch and panicked about it. He heard the message that you had to leave the house immediately. Beate and her family packed the essentials and also informed their neighbors. Fortunately, the news came very quickly that it was a hoax. There is still no official information about the reason for these fake announcements.

A possible explanation for the megaphone announcements would be fraudsters who were even driving with flashing lights. In this case, the aim of this scam could be to lure people out of their houses in order to ultimately loot them!

There is also a negative side effect: This situation is so perfidious, because next time those affected will not believe a real warning and end up staying at home. There is no official report from the police on this issue yet.

Euskrichen fire department also opened on July 19th. informed on Facebook that it was a false report about a dam bursting and published a photo from the night as proof. This is intended to show that the dam at the Steinbachtalsperre is intact

Article image: Facebook / Euskirchen fire department


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )