The following two paragraphs are taken from a news story. I'm wondering if the past-tense form "hit" and the present-perfect "has hit" should have been swithced around. At the very least, should the "has hit" have been changed into the simple past "hit"?
At least 189 people are dead and hundreds more remain missing after catastrophic flooding hit large swaths of western Europe, with tens of thousands unable to return to their homes and many still left without access to power and drinking water.
The flooding, caused by unprecedented rainfall, has hit parts of western Germany before shifting to neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands.