EUROPE/RUSSIA: The death toll from torrential rains and floods sweeping through Europe rose towards 30 yesterday with scores missing and thousands stranded.
Worst hit was Russia's Black Sea region where a tornado tore through tourist spots, whipping up floods that swept away wooden homes and carried cars into the sea. At least 21 people were reported dead, with many more missing, after muddy torrents surged through the region.
In the Czech Republic flooding killed several people in the south and forced over 2,000 to evacuate their homes on Thursday as heavy rains swelled rivers.
Unseasonal storms have also brought chaos to Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, the Crimea, Italy and Spain.
The flooding in southern Russia was the region's second inundation in two months. Most of the 21 victims died in Shirokaya Balka village, a resort not far from the port of Novorossiisk, the Emergencies Ministry said.
"There was a family stuck in a tree, the husband, the wife and the child. The child was crying until we finally managed to bring them down," Mr Oleg Perminov, a holidaymaker, told RTR television.
The floods left cars skewered in trees and furniture scattered along the shoreline. Bodies recovered from the sea were laid in front of a hostel for identification.
"I helped recover and carry five corpses," another holidaymaker told ORT television. "I've lived in Novorossiisk for 40 years and I have never seen anything like this." Floodwaters also washed away homes and bridges in inland localities, brought down telephone lines and submerged railway tracks.
Thousands of stranded holidaymakers faced the prospect of another night sleeping at railway stations as army units tried to repair damaged tracks.
In the Czech Republic at least four people are feared dead following flooding. Police said a tree uprooted and fell on a hut, killing a 21-year-old woman in a summer camp 80km south of Prague.
A motorist was feared dead after his car was swept away by the Malse river, and a 19-year-old woman was thought to have drowned after a raft overturned. A fireman died of a heart attack during rescue work.
Flooding from the Malse and Blanice rivers forced more than 2,000 people to leave their homes in southern areas, including Ceske Budejovice, home of the Czech Budweiser beer. Forecasters said rainfall over the last few days had been equivalent to a three-month summer average.
In Romania, heavy rains in the southern county of Gorj killed a child and an old man, bringing to seven the number of people to have died in floods over the past two weeks. "I was asleep and felt the bed was moving," said Maria Nitu from the southern village of Draganesti. "I woke up and saw the water up to the edge of the bed. I jumped out and ran into the attic and stayed there until some people came and took me in their boat. The water was up to the ceiling."
In the last two weeks three people have been drowned when floods hit the Black Sea county of Constanta, and two died after lightning struck a house in northeast Romania.
In Bulgaria, floods have affected swathes of the north and south of the country over the past 48 hours, killing livestock and triggering landslides. Thunderstorms killed a shepherd in south-eastern Bulgaria, and flooding damaged homes, roads, bridges and crops as well as cutting electricity supplies and telephone lines.
In Croatia, strong winds have toppled trees, destroyed powerlines and blown roofs off houses.
In northern Austria, a costly clean-up is under way in villages along the Kamp, a tributary of the Danube. Italian seaside resorts have also seen violent storms. In the north-east the worst hailstorm in recent memory wrecked crops.