Europe Faces Floods, Mud

Flood victims waded into their homes Wednesday to shovel out mud and cleanup crews cleared the debris from streets after heavy rains deluged central and southern Europe.

More than 250 residents from a submerged section of Bern, the
Swiss capital, were evacuated by helicopter, and Romanian officials
said seven people drowned overnight when waters surged into their
homes.

The storms have killed 34 people across Europe this week,
authorities said Wednesday, warning that the number could climb as
the missing are accounted for. Worst hit was Romania, with 25 dead
and thousands of homes inundated. Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland
reported a total of nine dead.

In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder promised assistance for
those affected by flooding in Bavaria. Authorities prepared for
rising river levels downstream from the Alps.

Military helicopters airlifted tourists out of some of the
hardest-hit areas in Austria, where streets had crumbled beside the
swollen rivers. Parts of the western Austrian province of
Vorarlberg remained cut off by closed roads, although sunny skies
Wednesday and predictions of a break from the torrential downpour
raised spirits.

"The situation is a bit better," said Doris Ita, the head of
Austria's flood emergency department.

Hundreds of people were evacuated Tuesday following storms that
sent muddy brown water surging along riverbanks in many regions,
causing millions of dollars in damage.

Hundreds in Austria's alpine valleys found themselves deluged
with mud. Train conductor Ernst Cavegn, 44, took a hammer and broke
apart a waterlogged sofa before tossing it from a second-story
window of his home, where water levels had risen as much as 15
feet.

"I grew up in this house. My parents built it when I was 3
years old, and now everything is destroyed," he said. "My wife is
in shock. She won't say a word."

The mayor of Reuthe, a community of 630, said the leaders of
dozens of other nearby villages had volunteered to help. Among his
biggest problems were people coming to examine the damage -
particularly a part of the village that had been transformed into a
lake.

In the town of Worgl, 150 people were rescued after being
stranded at a shopping mall 40 miles northeast of Innsbruck, state
television reported. The group spent the night at the center before
Austria's military evacuated them by boat.

Across the border in southern Germany, rail lines were swamped
and a highway was closed. Although floodwaters receded slightly
Wednesday, authorities were watching rising water levels farther
downstream on the Danube, Isar and Inn rivers.

In central Switzerland, water levels remained high. A number of
towns still were half-submerged in water. The town of Engelberg was
still isolated from the rest of Switzerland after its only road out
was washed away by landslide Tuesday.

"It is a huge catastrophe," Walter Dietrich, a government
official in the popular tourist destination of Interlaken, told the
daily Basler Zeitung.