34 killed in European floods

Flood victims waded into their homes to shovel out mud and clean-up crews cleared the debris from streets after heavy rains deluged central and southern Europe, killing 34 people.

More than 250 residents were evacuated from a submerged section of Bern, the Swiss capital – many of them by helicopter – and Romanian officials said seven people drowned when waters surged into their homes.

The storms have killed 34 people across Europe this week, authorities said, warning the number could climb as the missing were accounted for.

Worst hit was Romania, with 25 dead and thousands of homes inundated. Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland reported a total of nine dead.

Meanwhile, southern Europe was coping with forest fires. Hundreds of firefighters from across Europe were battling a dozen fires in Portugal, which has had little or no rain for 10 months. Spain and Italy also reported scorching forest fires.

In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder promised assistance for those affected by flooding in Bavaria, while authorities prepared for rising river levels downstream from the Alps.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel also promised financial support for victims in his country.

Military helicopters airlifted tourists out of some of the hardest-hit areas in Austria, where streets had crumbled beside the swollen rivers.

Parts of the western Austrian province of Vorarlberg remained cut off by closed roads, although sunny skies Wednesday and predictions of a break from the torrential downpour raised spirits.

“The situation is a bit better,” said Doris Ita, the head of Austria’s flood emergency department.

Hundreds of people were evacuated following storms that sent muddy brown water surgig along riverbanks in many regions.

Hundreds in Austria’s alpine valleys found themselves deluged with mud.

Train conductor Ernst Cavegn, 44, took a hammer and broke apart a waterlogged sofa before tossing it from a second-storey window of his home, where water levels had risen as much as 15 feet.

“I grew up in this house. My parents built it when I was 3 years old, and now everything is destroyed,” he said. “My wife is in shock. She won’t say a word.”

The mayor of Reuthe in Austria, a community of 630, said the leaders of dozens of other nearby villages had volunteered to help. Among his biggest problems were people coming to examine the damage – particularly a part of the village that had been transformed into a lake.

In the town of Worgl, 150 people were rescued after being stranded at a shopping mall 40 miles north-east of Innsbruck, state television ORF reported. The group spent a night at the centre before Austria’s military evacuated them by boat.

Across the border in southern Germany, rail lines were swamped and a highway was closed.

Although floodwaters receded slightly yesterday, authorities were watching rising water levels further downstream on the Danube, Isar and Inn rivers.

The Danube spilled over its banks slightly in Linz, in upper Austria, ORF reported. Ita said the river’s level was rising slowly, but that it was not expected to cause any severe flooding.

Water levels remained high in central Switzerland, where cows were airlifted to safety and professional soccer players filled sandbags to keep flood waters at bay, the French-language television station TSR reported.

A number of towns still were half-submerged in water or cut off from the outside world. The town of Engelberg was still isolated from the rest of Switzerland after its only road out was washed away by a landslide.