At least six people have been killed and hundreds evacuated from their homes as Switzerland and its neighbours struggle with widespread flooding after days of torrential rainfall in the northern Alps.
Rivers deluged by alpine waters burst their banks in Austria and Germany today, while mudslides blocked roads and railway tracks.
One person was killed when a swollen stream tore down eight houses in the central Swiss town of Brienz and a second flooding victim was found drowned in a river in another town.
In southern Tyrol in Austria, a rockfall caused by the flooding killed one man. Another two people were reported missing in Switzerland, one of them a woman swept away by a river in the Eastern canton of Grisons.
Two Swiss firefighters were killed by a mudslide yesterday, when floods spread from the Bernese Alps in central Switzerland to the city of St Gallen in the northeast, while an Austrian perished on Sunday.
Swiss television showed pictures of bridges that had collapsed, huge chunks of caved-in motorway, farms swept away by mudslides and people being evacuated by boat through normally busy city streets.
Electricity was cut off and drinking water contaminated in several parts of Switzerland. Villages were isolated as roads were swept away and railways stopped their services.
In Switzerland's capital Berne, almost 300 people were evacuated from a residential area. Over a thousand people have been evacuated throughout the country.
The Swiss Insurance Association of private insurers said it expected claims amounting to a triple-digit million Swiss franc figure from the floods.
Weather forecasts predicted only light showers for today in Switzerland and gradual improvement through the rest of the week. But rains were forecast to continue in Germany, where parts of southern Bavaria including most of the Alpine region as well as the city of Augsburg, where two rivers meet, have been declared catastrophe zones.
Emergency services rescued hundreds of people as rising flood waters in the south of the country blocked major roads and cut off several towns and villages from the outside world.
There were no reports of casualties or estimates of damage, although local authorities said the waters were higher in some places than in 1999, when costs from flooding in the same region were estimated at €335 million.
In Austria, over 100 houses were evacuated in the Tyrol village of Pflach after a dam broke. Innsbruck, the picturesque capital of Tyrol, closed all bridges over the river Inn as debris in the waters threatened to damage bridge supports.