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Hundreds flee as floods claim lives in Europe

Rescue workers piled sandbags to hold back surging floodwaters on Tuesday 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 on Tuesday in storm-related accidents in Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland. Thundering torrents of water surged along riverbanks in many regions, causing millions of euros 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 major access roads.

"The situation is very serious," said Doris Ita, the head of Austria's flood emergency department. "We have no communications with Vorarlberg."

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 into surging waters. As the water gushed around her windshield, a firefighter lowered by a helicopter climbed atop the rear window of the car and shattered the glass so that cables could be attached around its rear frame. The cables dragged the car from the water with the driver inside. She suffered shock, but no other injuries, police said.

Muddy water raced just under a bridge spanning the Inn River, which was perilously close to overflowing its banks. Firefighters and volunteers heaved bags of sand in a desperate attempt to hold the waters back in Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol province.

In Innsbruck's Maria Hilf neighborhood, 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.

Rising waters caused a gas explosion in the town of Reuthe in the Vorarlberg region, Austria Press Agency reported. At least three people were treated for burns at area hospitals.

The storms led to power and telephone cuts as well as interruptions in train service. In Vorarlberg, several train cars were toppled over in the mud.

Near the border with Germany, the rising waters threatened a major north-south artery linking central Europe. The flooding danger was reported near the city of Kufstein.

In Bavaria, embankments collapsed near Eschenlohe and the town of Kempten, letting flood waters from the Loisach and Iller rivers surge into the towns.

Police had to evacuate about 54 people by helicopter from their homes in Eschenlohe along the Loisach River. In Bad Toelz in the Isar River Valley, about 1,500 had to be evacuated, and about 1,000 people had been told to leave their homes in the southern Bavarian town of Kempten.
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