GERMANY: Residents in many parts of central Europe and southern Germany were cleaning up last night following floods and landslides which have killed at least 34 people in the past week.
With the Danube waters still rising, a huge clean-up operation was under way in villages and towns submerged by the floods. Worst hit was Romania, with 25 dead and thousands of homes inundated. Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland reported a total of nine dead.
Despite a break in the torrential downpours yesterday, the authorities were preparing for further flooding in Bavaria.
In the medieval city of Regensburg, on the banks of the Danube, shopkeepers were sandbagging entrances as the waters lapped up against the city's famous bridge.
The flood is expected to reach a high point of 5.4 metres (18ft) later today. "I am going to sleep in my DVD shop all night," Frederich Schaumann said, as he barricaded his front entrance, next to a guesthouse where Goethe once slept. "I have my water pump, I have plenty of coffee and I am insured," he said.
At the Wurstkuchl cafe, tourists tucked into sausages and sauerkraut next to a giant inflatable barrier.
"I do not think this has much to do with global warming," said Peter Schmidt, from Berlin, as the nearby willows buckled under the surging waters. "After all, the floods were even worse here in 1893."
Greenpeace, however, insisted that the floods were a direct result of climate change.
Parts of the Swiss capital, Bern, were submerged in the deluge. Many residents were still being ferried to safety yesterday.
The resorts of Lucerne and Interlaken are also partially flooded. The floods followed three days of torrential rains, with millions of gallons of muddy brown water cascading down from the Alps.
The waters have already caused millions of euros of damage, with insurers putting the bill in Switzerland alone at more than €320 million.
In Bulgaria, floods have left 14,000 homeless, with torrential rains flooding the region of Montana.