Flooding on the Rhine River has prompted German authorities to halt shipping around the city of Cologne, located on both sides of the Rhine near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. Shipping was stopped on Sunday after the river breached the 8.3-meter (27-foot) mark, Deutsche Welle reported. It is expected to reach nine meters on Monday, more than 2.5 times above the normal water level of 3.5 meters in this part of the Rhineland. The authorities had already restricted shipping on the upper reaches of the Rhine and on two major tributaries, the Moselle and Neckar, AP reports. In some villages along the Moselle, the river spilled over into the streets on Saturday. “People are piling up sandbags, pumping out their cellars and emptying their homes. We hope the situation will get better soon,” Arno Simon, mayor of the Moselle town of Urzig, told German press agency DPA.