Today’s Dutch dailies report on the storms that toppled Anne Frank’s tree and left parts of the Netherlands flooded. They also look at the subterranean plight of Chile’s stranded miners, the future of the Dutch police force and an arty reinvention of football.

Anne Frank's tree bites the dust
The wind and rain that swept across the Netherlands yesterday claimed a celebrated victim in Amsterdam: the horse chestnut tree that Anne Frank looked out on during her years in hiding during World War II and described in her famous diary. AD reports “the tree was all but dead for years but was kept alive artificially” and treats us to a diagram of the steel construction put in place in 2008 to shore up the tree, which was being eaten away from the inside by a fungus. But even the metal support couldn’t prevent it being “snapped like a matchstick” in yesterday’s gusts.

De Volkskrant reflects that “the story of the tree was bigger than the tree itself”. AD’s columnist Jacobine Geel agrees: “When Anne Frank first saw the tree from the window of her hiding place, it was just standing there … But as the war went on it came to stand for something. For the outside world, freedom, resilience, life. Perhaps even beauty.” Freesheet De Pers takes a more cynical view: “Such is the cult that has arisen around the writer of the world-famous diary that everything she ever touched, looked at or listened to has taken on a sacred significance.” That significance also has its price on today’s market: AD reports that a neighbour with the presence of mind to pop down and pick up a chestnut from the fallen icon has just sold it to an American bidder on Ebay for €7000.

Dutch summer ends with floods
The weather that brought Anne Frank’s chestnut tree crashing down also caused its fair share of trouble elsewhere in the country. AD calls it “an appalling end to the summer” and presents a front-page picture of a young lad in Delft manoeuvring his way through a knee-deep pool of water on his bike. The paper reports that some places were treated to “one month’s worth of rain in a single morning”.

De Volkskrant observes that the sewer system alone is never going to be enough to cope with such torrential downpours and advocates temporary water storage on streets, squares and under the ground to minimise disruption. Trouw interviews a school caretaker who puts things in perspective after spending the entire morning pumping water out of a sodden basement: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my ten years as a caretaker. But it has its funny side too, as long as the kids aren’t in any danger. And of course it’s nothing compared to what’s happening in Pakistan at the moment.”

Chile’s trapped miners: can they hang on for months?
All today's newspapers cover the gripping drama of the group of Chilean miners located alive 17 days after a cave-in. Elation that they have been found alive is mixed with concern and surprise that it may be months before they see the light of day again. NRC.next sums up the situation: "33 men, 700 metres under the ground, 3 months long". Sister paper NRC Handelsblad warns "underground, your spirit can break quickly" below a grainy video close-up of one of the miners, and asks "Why will their rescue take so long and what does that do to a person?"

Despite its sombre headline, the paper says the worst of their ordeal may now be over. It talks to psychologist Berna van Baarsen who studies how human beings function in extreme situations. She explains that "Hope of rescue is a very strong emotion. The biggest danger now would be a setback in the rescue or family problems on the surface ... the last thing these men need right now is any worry about their families." The paper explains the instability of the mine is why it will take so long to get the miners back to the surface.

The psychologist sees leadership as another key factor in their well-being: "If someone takes on that role and assigns duties, it can make a huge difference." The paper notes that such a leader seems to have emerged in the shape of 63-year-old Mario Gomez, who attached a letter to the drill that made contact with the group. Tellingly it included the words "This company really needs to modernise".

Time to streamline the Dutch police?
NRC Handelsblad reports on the Public Prosecution Service’s desire for the Dutch police to be radically restructured. The paper reckons it’s an ambition whose time may have come now that three centre-right parties are engaged in coalition talks aimed at forming the next government. The Service wants to reduce the present system of 25 regional forces and one national force to 10 forces that answer directly to a single law and order minister. The plan has also been given a boost by some alarming statistics: only 350,000 of the 1.2 million crimes reported in the Netherlands in 2009 have since come under investigation and only 20 percent of criminal gangs involved in the drugs trade, human trafficking and money laundering are actively being pursued by police.

In its editorial, populist broadsheet De Telegraaf calls the figures “shocking” and argues that they are primarily due to “the crippling system of 26 police forces … a hopeless organisation in which the police are so busy consulting and coordinating they barely have time to catch crooks”. It blames Labour-backed police chiefs for blocking the move towards a centralised force for fear of losing influence. “Terrifying” is the word NRC Handelsblad uses to describe the figures, noting “it’s hard keep cynicism at bay: time was when we’d turn a blind eye to minor offences, now we’re doing it with organised crime.” It suggests that “In a small country like the Netherlands even 10 regional police forces is rather a lot” and concludes “It’s time to make our organisational structures fit the real world.”

Football crazy
Two very different football stories make the papers today. Trouw and de Volkskrant assess the fortunes of Dutch coach and former star player Frank Rijkaard, who is currently in charge of Turkish team Galatasaray. De Volkskrant comments that calls for his resignation are growing louder after a disastrous start to the season. One local commentator complains, “He’s been here for over a year and he still doesn’t seem to know our teams or our players” and goes on to warn “Here in Turkey we don’t have much patience with coaches who fail.” Under the headline “Tactless Dutchman”, Trouw thinks Rijkaard “blew any credit he had” by not inviting any of the club’s millionaire board members to his wedding. Now that things have never looked so bad for “the best club in Turkey” a local sports journalist reckons Rijkaard will be packing his bags soon.

De Volkskrant features a striking aerial photograph of a work by Spanish artist Maider López. It takes the form of four football pitches amid a typically Dutch polder landscape. If you have your doubts as to whether the waterlogged Dutch countryside is all that suited to football, you’d be right. Each of the pitches she has marked out is divided by at least one ditch full of water. The artist has organised a tournament and invited players to come up with new tactics and rules to cope with natural obstacles like holes, molehills and ditches which are a feature of the playing field. One of the few fixed rules is a ban on jumping over ditches, which on some pitches will leave one or two players stranded on a narrow strip of land. The Dutch seem to be up for the challenge though: 200 people have already signed up!