Liesingtal flooded

Storm: “I can’t even look at it”

Eva Maria Igler runs a trout farm in Kalwang with her family.(Bild: Sepp Pail)

Dead trout and char as far as the eye can see, waist-high flooded cellars, a mudslide right behind the house: on Wednesday night, a storm in Kalwang and Mautern in Styria brought catastrophic conditions. The "Krone" was on site during the clean-up operation.

Eva Maria Igler stands on the bridge that connects her home with the family's trout farm. The Liesing, normally a stream, has become a raging, brown flood. The first sirens went off in Mautern and Kalwang at 11 p.m. on Tuesday. "The fire department arrived at one in the morning," says Igler. "The heart of our farm was flooded."

The heart of the farm is the incubators for the young trout. This is where they are bred before being released into the ponds. "I can't even look in there," says Igler, unable to hold back the tears.