Rainstorms kill four in Germany

Four people are presumed dead in south-west Germany after rainstorms triggered flooding that left one small town littered with debris and rubble.

A fireman and a man he was trying to rescue in Schwaebisch Gmuend were sucked into a flooded underpass.

Both men were presumed dead, though their bodies had not yet been recovered yesterday, police said.

The body of a third victim was found in a flooded garage in Weissbach near the city of Heilbronn.

In Schorndorf, near Stuttgart, a train fatally struck a 13-year-old girl as she sheltered from the rain under a railway bridge on Sunday evening.

In the small town of Braunsbach, two streams burst their banks, unleashing floodwaters that destroyed one house, damaged several others and left streets strewn with debris.

Much of Europe experienced heavy rainstorms over the weekend.

Meanwhile, authorities in central Texas have found two more bodies along a flooded streams, bringing the death toll from severe weather in the state to six.

It is unclear whether a body found in Travis County near Austin is one of the two people still missing in Texas, while an 11-year-old boy remains missing in central Kansas.