Five die and hundreds flee as floods hit Europe

RESCUE workers piled sandbags to hold back surging floodwaters yesterday and evacuated hundreds of people from alpine valleys in Austria and southern Germany as heavy rains and landslides battered central and southern Europe.

Five people were reported dead in storm-related accidents in Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland. Thundering torrents of water surged along riverbanks in many regions, causing millions of pounds in damage.

Austrian firefighters, soldiers and rescue workers fanned out to help hundreds to safety in the hard-hit Landeck region, including Lechtal Valley in Tyrol province.

The Kleinwalsertal Valley, which borders the German state of Bavaria in the province of Vorarlberg, was completely cut off, with flooding of access roads.

"The situation is very serious," said Doris Ita, the head of Austria's flood emergency department.

"We have no communications with Vorarlberg, because mudslides cut off two main land lines."

In a dramatic rescue in the southern province of Carinthia, firefighters saved a 72-year-old woman whose car was perched for two hours at a 45-degree angle above surging waters.

In Innsbruck's Maria Hilf neighbourhood, the brown water rushed beside barriers as bewildered residents watched from their doorways. One person died in a rock slide in Oetztal, a valley in Tyrol, authorities said.

Near the border with Germany, the rising waters threatened an important north-south artery linking central Europe.

Several regions of Switzerland reported the heaviest rainfall on record while the flooding also hit parts of Romania and Bulgaria.