The Interior Department has activated the 1722 number following a severe weather warning issued on Wednesday evening by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, IRM.
The purpose of 1722 is to prevent emergency numbers from being overwhelmed by calls for interventions that can wait. This number should therefore be dialled in the event of storm damage or water damage for which fire brigade assistance is required.
If a life is in danger, 112 is the number to call.
The Interior Department also recommends using the electronic hotline 1722.be, considered to be “the most direct way of requesting help from the fire brigade in situations where no life is in danger.”
According to the IRM, an area of active rainfall will reach the west of the country during the course of the night and gradually move inland.
Although there is no consensus in the various model outputs, many of them are forecasting local rainfall totals of 20 to 40 litres/m2, within a period of about 12 hours, in at least a quarter of the provinces of West and East Flanders and the far west of Hainaut.
