Swiss brace for more floods, Romanian toll up

BERNE, Switzerland - Helicopters ferried food to isolated Alpine villages today as residents and rescue workers feared swollen lakes may overflow and bring more havoc to flood-ravaged Switzerland.

In Romania, one of the countries worst hit by the downpours that lashed central Europe earlier this week, the death toll from flooding rose by six to 31, with another three people missing, including a 4-year-old girl.

Lakes and rivers burst their banks from Berne to Bucharest, cutting roads, power and communications to hundreds of communities and causing damage estimated at well over $1 billion in Switzerland alone.

In the Swiss capital, police finished evacuating over 1000 residents from the oldest part of town, fearing centuries-old buildings could be swept away by a fresh surge in the river Aare once barrages from the upstream lake Thun were cleared of wood.

"We can cope with lots of water coming from Thun. But if it is aggravated by rain, which is in the forecast on Friday, we will have problems," said Franz Maerki, Berne police spokesman.

Firefighters pumped streets and cellars, but water remained 1.5 metre deep in one area, he added.

"Police will not let people return to the quarter because they fear the water may rise again," said John Hopper, a British restaurant owner in the city. "They are saying we will not be allowed back for a week."

In the central city of Lucerne, sandbags protected shops and homes and residents watched anxiously as the river Reuss rushed perilously close beneath the city's covered 14th-century wooden bridge -- a national landmark.

"Right now the water level is falling, but we just do not know what is going to happen next," civil protection official Rene Bieri told Reuters.

Eight people have died and thousands were evacuated from their homes in Switzerland and Austria, where the toll rose to four on Thursday when searchers found the body of an 81-year-old man missing since his car tumbled into a swollen river.

HELICOPTERS

The Swiss army was using Puma helicopters to supply several villages, including the scenic mountain resort of Engelberg, which has been cut off since Monday by rain which also sent part of the railway line plunging down a ravine.

One of some 1200 tourists evacuated since Monday by air from the village told Swiss television they had been without hot food, clean water and electricity.

Not all tourists were unhappy. "It was like a carnival here last night, with everybody crowding the streets," said Australian Ray Condon as he squeezed along a wooden walkway in Lucerne. "Everybody was out taking pictures."

But the Swiss authorities have warned sightseers to stay away from the waters, worried about a sudden rise in river levels or more flash floods.

In southern Germany, a 28-year-old man drowned when he ventured out with two friends in a dinghy which capsized on the River Mangfall near the town of Feldkirchen-Westerham.

He was Germany's first victim of the floods, which have turned regions of Bavaria into disaster zones.

At the Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg, Bavaria's oldest monastery, monks were forced to take safety in upper floors.

"It's a war of nerves," one monk, Brother Benedikt, told Reuters Television.

In Romania, the latest deaths were from the Transylvanian region of Harghita. "I lost everything," a young villager told Realitatea TV station. "I saw floodwaters carry away a big bus parked near my home."

Floods across the country have killed 67 so far this year. The government estimates the damage at $1.5 billion.

- REUTERS