Severe rainstorms lashed large parts of southern Germany on Friday and Saturday, causing major disruptions to transport links and leading residents to be evacuated by helicopter.
A dyke and a dam also gave way under the deluge, requiring separate evacuations, authorities in the Bavarian district of Augsburg said.
Train services were cancelled between the Bavarian capital Munich, Bregenz in Austria and Switzerland’s Zurich due to flooding. The route between Ulm and Augsburg was also affected, and long-distance trains travelling between Stuttgart and Munich were diverted.
In the Bavarian town of Fischach, west of Munich, a helicopter was used to rescue people from their homes after the Schmutter river broke its banks. The residents would not have been able to leave their homes by any other means, said a spokeswoman for the district administration.
According to police, boats and emergency services were also on the way to take people from inundated houses. Several neighbouring districts declared a state of emergency as the rain continued and water levels continued to rise.
In the state of Baden-Württemberg, west of Bavaria, the situation was rapidly deteriorating after the Rottum river began to flood several towns. In the town of Reinstetten, 150 emergency services had been working for more than 22 hours to stem flooding from a breached dam, Mayor Philipp Bürkle told dpa.
Bürkle said fire brigades from the surrounding area were pumping out cellars and distributing sandbags. Just one assisted living facility, with 15 residents, had been evacuated so far.
Some 55 km to the north, authorities in the resort town of Wiesensteig imposed a requirement for its 2,100 residents to boil water before consumption after floodwaters washed over the local water supply facility.
To the south, near Lake Constance, a school in the Baden-Württemberg village of Meckenbeuren had to be evacuated when flooding from a local river collapsed sandbag barriers around it.
The German weather service predicted further thunderstorms and as much as 80 litres of rainfall per square metre in southern areas of Germany on Saturday. The storms were also likely to continue on Sunday.
