Thousands of homes have been evacuated along Germany’s River Elbe after waters threatened to break through levees protecting several towns.

The swollen River Danube is approaching Budapest, where soldiers and volunteers are building flood walls, officials said.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in a region of eastern Germany where the Elbe river has flooded and burst through a dam, while a swollen Danube was approaching Budapest where soldiers and volunteers are building flood walls, officials said yesterday.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in a region of eastern Germany where the Elbe river has flooded and burst through a dam, officials said.

More than 70,000 firefighters and 11,000 soldiers are on duty fighting the most dramatic floods in Germany in more than a decade.

THE death toll from an outbreak of killer bacteria centred on Germany jumped to at least 30 as EU and Russian leaders got ready to cross swords over Moscow’s ban on EU vegetables.

ENDA KENNY could have a unique problem when he attends his second EU summit on Thursday and Friday — that of getting and keeping the attention of his fellow leaders sufficiently long to get his interestrate reduction.

A head-on train crash in eastern Germany killed 10 people and injured at least 33 others, eight of them severely, local firefighters said today, and police feared the death toll could rise.

IF you think the weather is bad here – spare a thought for our European neighbours.

Scientists have used DNA testing to uncover the earliest evidence that Stone Age man lived in nuclear families.

A bus veered off a road and fell into a roadside ditch in eastern Germany today, killing 11 people, police said.

Czech officials have declared a state of emergency in seven flood-hit regions while rivers continued to rise in neighbouring European countries today, forcing evacuations in some areas.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right government strengthened its grip on German politics with victories for the two ruling parties in three state elections and bad results for what remains of the opposition.

Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel will have only limited authority in Germany’s planned left-right government, leaders of its two main parties said, as they prepared today for the start of full-blown coalition negotiations.

German authorities plan to seal an underground nuclear dump in the former communist east with four million tonnes of concrete to contain its radioactivity for at least 150,000 years.

Authorities in eastern Germany cleaning up from disastrous flooding have been presented with deadlier hazards – Second World War ammunition left behind by the receding waters.

THE swollen Elbe River peaked early yesterday in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, which was spared a major evacuation effort as dykes held back the floods that have left a trail of devastation upstream.

The swollen Elbe River peaked early today in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, which was spared a major evacuation effort as dikes held back the floods that have left a trail of devastation upstream.