Christmas miracle: German flood victims receive tiny houses

Franziska Hilberath, a victim of the July 15, 2021 extreme weather and lethal floods in the Ahr Valley stands on the veranda of a tiny house she and her partner received by the authorities just in time for Christmas Eve in Grafschaft, near Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany December 23, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

BERLIN (Reuters) - For Franziska Hilberath, whose home in western Germany's Ahr valley was destroyed by flash floods this summer, it was a Christmas miracle to be able to move into a donation-financed "tiny house" this month just in time for the holidays.

Hilberath and her partner have been sleeping at the homes of friends and relatives since Germany's most lethal floods in six decades in July that killed more than 180 people and destroyed many houses, roads, railway lines and bridges.