EUROPE GETS FLOODED

Europe flooding death toll rises BBC NEWS

Volunteers have been helping to defend vulnerable towns in HungaryRising floodwaters have continued to cause chaos across central Europe, with more heavy rain expected next week.
The government in Hungary has deployed more than 10,000 troops and police to the worst-hit areas as the river Danube climbed to record levels in Budapest.

In Austria, an 18-month-old boy was found dead on Tuesday as rising water in rivers caused a second dam to break. At least a dozen people have lost their lives in recent floods in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia. In the Hungarian capital, the Danube reached a record 8.48m (26 feet) on Tuesday and was expected to peak at 8.6m (28 feet).

About 25,000 people, half of them volunteers, have struggled to maintain flood defences before the reinforcements were announced. Dresden - devastated by floods in 2002 - has also been affected. The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest says most fears now focus on rain forecast for later in the week. Eight cities in Germany were affected by floods on Tuesday, with a total of 1,300 people evacuated.

Floodwaters also continued to threaten residents in Czech towns in the north and south-east of the country, preventing thousands of people from returning to their homes. Authorities warned on Tuesday that floods in the Czech Republic would last for at least another week, as more snow was expected to melt in the mountains. In Slovakia, the situation appeared to have stabilised with river levels falling across the country.