Fires and floods continue to leave a trail of death and destruction across Europe, with some central European countries experiencing devastating floods, while authorities in parched Spain and Portugal battle dozens of raging wildfires.
Record flooding in southern Germany surged downstream from the Alps on Wednesday as rescue workers and volunteers raced to save cities and towns in its path.
As the worst appeared to be over in the Alpine region, residents along the Danube, Inn and Isar rivers braced for disaster while thousands of people helped heave sandbags to shore up straining dams.
The Bavarian cities of Regensburg and Passau and the Straubing, Kehlheim and Neuburg looked set to bear the brunt of the raging waters. In several areas, the level of the river broke records set in 1999.
The Danube burst its banks at Neu-Ulm, prompting authorities to rush patients at a hospital and residents of a retirement home to safety.
Helpers scrambled throughout the night in the districts of Guenzburg and Dillingen to secure a dam.
”If the dam breaks, two towns will have to be partly evacuated,” a police spokesperson said.
As relief efforts moved into a higher gear, the flooded regions became a campaign battleground with candidates in next month’s general election lining up to visit stricken areas.
Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber of the opposition conservative Christian Union was to meet with volunteers in Sonthofen in the Allgaeu region, while Interior Minister Otto Schily of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrats was to get an overview of the catastrophe on a helicopter tour.
Schröder, who was able to rescue his re-election bid in 2002 with his deft management of a flooding crisis in the east of the country, is to visit the state himself on Thursday. Germany goes to
the polls on September 18.
Torrential downpours abated overnight, providing relief in the Alpine region near the Austrian border.
Residents began clean-up work as hundreds of people who had been evacuated from the town of Bad Toelz returned to their homes early on Wednesday.
The waters gradually receded from the valley surrounding the popular ski resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the town of Eschenlohe, which were cut off from the outside world on Tuesday.
The autobahn connecting the Bavarian state capital, Munich, with the city of Stuttgart to the northwest reopened in both directions after a section was closed on Tuesday.
Death roll rises in Romania, Austria
The death toll in storms and floods over the past 10 days in Romania has reached 25, the interior ministry said on Wednesday in Bucharest.
Seven people have drowned in the hard-hit Harghita district since Sunday and eight have gone missing. By the end of the weekend, 18 people were confirmed killed by incessant storms and floods.
In the town of Odorheiu Secuiesc, in the Harghita area, 800 houses were submerged. In the broader region, the number of homes penetrated by water rose to 2 800 in 22 towns.
The picture is incomplete, as entire areas remain cut off by floods and landslides.
In western Austria, the body of a man was found on Wednesday in a flooded basement, raising the death toll from the heavy rains this week to three, with one person missing and 17 reported injuries.
Floods had wreaked havoc especially in the western provinces of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, causing cuts in the telephone service, power outages and rendering many roads unpassable.
But officials said on Wednesday that they expect conditions to improve over the coming days.
”The worst is over,” said Siegfried Jaches, a spokesperson for the federal interior ministry.
He said it is too early to estimate damage from the extreme weather.
The latest victim, a 52-year-old man in Reuthe, in Vorarlberg province, was found in the basement of his home buried in mud brought on by the floods.
In the same town, six people had been injured, three of them burned badly, when flood waters set off a gas explosion on Tuesday.
An 81-year-old woman who was driving her car in the same province was reported missing on Tuesday after her vehicle was swept away by the raging waters.
Another person was found dead Tuesday in Langenfeld, in Tyrol province, killed in a rockfall.
In the southern province of Styria, a 50-year-old woman died on Monday when her home in the town of Gasen was hit by floodwaters.
Her 77-year-old mother-in-law was badly hurt and taken to hospital.
Pope prays for disaster victims
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI prayed on Wednesday for the victims of severe weather in Europe, saying he is spiritually close to those facing such ”tragic hardship”.
”My thoughts go to the regions of Europe hit in recent days by floods and fires which unfortunately have caused victims and great damage,” the pope said at his weekly general audience, held in a hall in the Vatican.
”Many families are without homes and hundreds of people have to face up to tragic hardships,” he added.
Benedict said he is spiritually close ”in affection and in prayer” for those suffering from these events, adding that he hopes ”they can be supported by common solidarity”. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa-DPA