Heavy rainfall and possible thunderstorms are expected to hit Belgium from Wednesday evening until Thursday morning, resulting in emergency number 1722 being activated and a code yellow warning being issued.
The Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) gave a severe weather warning starting at 20:00 on Wednesday night until 08:00 in the morning on Thursday, issuing code yellow for heavy winds over the whole country.
"An active rain and showers zone will pass over the country from the coast. This will include a chance of thunderstorms and locally intense precipitation," the RMI stated. Hailstorms may also occur in certain places.
"This precipitation zone will be accompanied by high winds. In general, we expect gusts between 70 and 80 km/h, but locally even stronger gusts are possible in case of a thunderstorm," the warning added.
Particularly in the west of the country, gusts may locally reach somewhat higher speeds.
Storm and weather damage
As a result, the emergency number 1722 has been activated by the FPS Home Affairs, meaning people have to call this number or make a request online in case of storm and water damage for which fire brigade assistance is required. As always, the number 112 is reserved for life-threatening situations.
When calling 1722, the operators of the 112 emergency centres first process the calls to this number, before forwarding the request to the fire brigade. They handle calls to 1722 on separate telephone lines from 112 so that the most urgent calls can be handled first.
A request made on the online counter will be forwarded directly to the fire brigade. A person making a request has to give their contact details and the name of their municipality, so the request can be sent to the appropriate emergency zone.
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The fire brigade then examines each situation on a case-by-case basis and gives priority to any person whose life is potentially in danger.
Thursday will start out wet in some areas excluding the west of the country, however, as the precipitation zone over the country moves away to Germany, the skies will brighten over Belgium, with temperatures between 10°C and 12°C.
