Romania suffers most deaths and €1.5bn damage in deluge

FLOODING in Romania has killed 66 people this year and caused more than €1.5 billion in damage as rising waters smashed dams, swept away roads and collapsed bridges, Interior Minister Vasile Blaga said.

Rain in the past three days alone killed 31 people as it unleashed flash floods as deep as seven metres in a Transylvanian county, Mr Blaga said in a news conference in Bucharest yesterday. A four-year-old girl and two older men are missing “with little chance of being found alive,” he said.

Mr Blaga said in the past three days water destroyed 46 houses, 230 bridges, 35km of roads and flooded over 2,500 hectares of farmland and left some villages without electricity. He said 1,400 soldiers and more than 900 people from his ministry are performing rescue work.