VIENNA: While parched Portugal and Spain battled dozens of wildfires, flood warnings were issued elsewhere in Europe yesterday as heavy rains caused havoc in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany and Switzerland.
Two people were killed and two others were missing after three days of heavy rain in central and eastern Switzerland turned Alpine streams into raging torrents and triggered flooding around the country’s lakes.
One person died and another was missing after eight houses were swept away by a swollen torrent overnight in the small town of Brienz in central Switzerland, a local official said.
The body of a man was also found in a flooding stream near the village of Duernten, police in the canton of Zurich said.
Meanwhile, a woman was missing after being swept into a river in the eastern village of Kueblis while out walking her dog.
In western Europe, wildfires and the worst drought since the mid 1940s struck Spain and Portugal.
Nearly 3,000 fire-fighters and soldiers battled dozens of blazes that continued to ravage Portugal as police found the charred body an elderly woman near her rural home, emergency services said.
Eleven fires raged out of control in the centre and north of the country but fire-fighters said that Coimbra, the nation’s third-largest city, was no longer under threat from flames due to a change in wind direction.
Portuguese forces were backed by nine fire-fighting planes and helicopters rushed in from five fellow European Union nations – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands – after Lisbon appealed for help on Saturday.
In the northwestern Spanish province of Galicia fire-fighters battled 24 blazes, including one that has burned for three days and threatened homes near the coast west of Santiago de Compostela, local government sources said.
But in central Europe, flooding caused by torrential rains cut roads and railways through the Alps, while homes and campsites were evacuated in many areas, authorities said.
The situation was still critical around the Swiss lakes of Thun, Brienz, Biel and Lucerne, which exceeded their alert levels.
Low-lying neighbourhoods of the capital Bern were partly underwater after the river Aare reached the record level set during floods in 1999.
About 2,500 people, including some tourists, were given shelter in civil defence facilities or hotels in several areas, reports indicated.
Romania, the worst hit country in Europe so far this summer with a death toll of 42 since June, was spared yesterday.
In neighbouring Bulgaria, however, the toll from storms climbed to 26 as torrential rains flooded the northwestern region of Montana.
Flood alerts were also in effect in western parts of Austria, where 450 soldiers were mobilised to help in rescue operations while 30mn euros ($36.6mn) of emergency aid was unblocked for the worst hit areas.
One person died in the Tyrolian region of Otztal, apparently from a landslide.
In the southern German cities of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Kempten, floods led authorities to declare a natural catastrophe.
The flooding halted rail traffic between Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen and also blocked highways.
In Hungary, officials estimate flood damage at 40mn euros. – AFP