SIMBACH AM INN: At least nine people have been killed in floods that have wreaked havoc in Germany and France, trapping people in their homes and forcing rescuers to row lifeboats down streets turned into muddy rivers.
In Paris, officials were putting up emergency flood barriers on Thursday along the swollen river Seine after days of torrential rain, including near the Louvre, home to priceless works of art.
The force of the water swept away the entire stock of a sawmill in the German town of Simbach am Inn, leaving huge stacks of splintered wood blocking the streets of the devastated town.
On one street, passers-by were greeted by the surreal sight of a car parked vertically against the wall of a house, pushed there by the floodwaters. Many other vehicles lay flipped over in roads blanketed by mud.
The dead in Simbach include three women from the same family, a mother, grandmother and daughter, who had been trapped in their house.
“The water was so quick that practically no residents had the time to run away,” police spokesman Armin Angloher said. Police said a man’s body had also been found in a house in Simbach, while an 80-year-old woman was found dead in Julbach a few kilometers away.
In Paris, officials were putting up emergency flood barriers on Thursday along the swollen river Seine after days of torrential rain, including near the Louvre, home to priceless works of art.
The force of the water swept away the entire stock of a sawmill in the German town of Simbach am Inn, leaving huge stacks of splintered wood blocking the streets of the devastated town.
On one street, passers-by were greeted by the surreal sight of a car parked vertically against the wall of a house, pushed there by the floodwaters. Many other vehicles lay flipped over in roads blanketed by mud.
The dead in Simbach include three women from the same family, a mother, grandmother and daughter, who had been trapped in their house.
“The water was so quick that practically no residents had the time to run away,” police spokesman Armin Angloher said. Police said a man’s body had also been found in a house in Simbach, while an 80-year-old woman was found dead in Julbach a few kilometers away.
