Floods in Germany, disaster declared

HAMBURG: An 82-year-old woman drowned when her basement apartment suddenly filled with water as torrential rain caused flooding in parts of Germany early on Sunday.

A state of disaster was declared in two regions of the southern state of Bavaria close to the city of Nuremberg.

Police said choked streams burst their banks and the waters, in many places a metre and a half deep, invaded homes and caused underground home-heating oil tanks in yards to float free of the soil.

In the small town of Poxdorf, a woman returned Saturday night from a party to find the basement of her home flooded and her elderly mother missing. Civil-defence divers found the mother dead inside.

The flooding happened only 48 hours after an earlier round of downpours in the area, cut Germany's Autobahn 73 for several hours and stranded hundreds of motorists. They had to be taken to safety by firefighters leaving their cars on the highway.

The water also washed out the railway line between the cities of Erlangen and Bamberg.

Heavy rain was forecast throughout on  Sunday in parts of Germany.

Further south in Switzerland, thunderstorms lashed the Swiss capital Berne Saturday evening, causing landslips and flooding low-lying homes. A main highway near Interlaken was blocked by a slip and a rail link cut.