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Military helicopters ferried in supplies yesterday to alpine valleys cut off by flooding and evacuated stranded tourists as central and southern Europe struggled with the aftermath of a disaster that has killed 69 people.
Rescue workers in the Swiss capital of Bern, where over 300 people have been evacuated, planned to remove more people from flooded sections of the city. Authorities cleared debris in the flooded Matte district of the city, a low-lying area next to the river Aare, ahead of the evacuation and said some structures were in danger of collapse.
The storms have killed 69 people across Europe this week a figure that has risen steadily as floodwaters washed up the missing. Hardest hit in the disaster was Romania, with 31 dead since the rains began nine days ago, authorities said yesterday. Austria, Bulgaria, Germany and Switzerland reported a total of 38 dead.
Flash flooding in Romania's hard-hit Harghita county caused waves as high as 4 meters, local authorities said.
Three people were also missing in Harghita, including a 4-year-old girl, said Maria Magdalena Sipos, a local government official. Many of the dead drowned when they were trapped in their homes.
With the rains subsiding, officials in Austria turned their attention to the cleanup and reconstruction.
"The danger is over," said Doris Ita, the head of Austria's flood emergency department. "But we are still watching the situation."
Victims struggled to clear debris and shovel away the mud from their homes in the Austrian provinces of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, where many areas remained cut off by flooded roads.
Military engineers estimated it would take up to 10 days to rebuild bridges washed away by the torrents of water and authorities dispatched helicopters with food, water and gasoline to remote regions, said Guenther Wieser, a spokesman for the military in Vorarlberg.
Water levels remained high in central Switzerland, which was hard hit by the torrential downpours which swamped central and southern Europe earlier this week.
Hundreds have been evacuated from the capital many by helicopter. Maerki said most of the district's 1,100 residents have left the area.
Water levels were falling yesterday in the tributaries of the Danube in Germany, and officials were hopeful that the cities of Ingolstadt and Regensburg would avoid serious damage.
However, the river flooded part of the southeastern town of Kelheim, including its Weltenburg Monastery, founded in the 7th century and described as the oldest in Bavaria.
The ground floor of the Benedictine monastery, which draws 500,000 visitors a year, was submerged early yesterday, said Father Benedikt, the monastery's prior.
"The community is working feverishly to rescue what it can," Benedikt said.
Poland was also hit by the downpours, with about 10 roads and a number of houses flooded in the southern part of the country near the Czech border. Train service was also disrupted.
(China Daily August 26, 2005)
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