SALZBURG (Austria), Aug 12: Deadly floods wreaked havoc across Europe on Monday, with the Austrian city of Salzburg declared a disaster area and a major German autobahn shut down as torrential rains swept the region.

The extreme weather claimed a dozen victims across Europe, days after flash floods left at least 58 dead on Russia’s Black Sea coast.

The floods claimed at least two lives in Austria, after a woman was found drowned in Hallein, south of Salzburg, after the Salzach river burst its banks, said Franz Schausberger, governor of central Salzburg province.

A German tourist was swept away by a swollen river near Mariapfarr in Salzburg province last week and it was feared the death toll may rise, after a firefighter was reported missing after falling into the same waters on Monday.

“What we’re seeing in Austria happens only two or three times a century,” said French meteorologist Pierre Bessemoulin.

Fear spread as the Salzach river that cuts through Salzburg swelled to critical levels and continued to rise rapidly, causing the closure of the dozens of bridges that span the classical city.

Floods which had been contained to the northeast of the country began to spread as far as the borders with Hungary and Switzerland and even to the capital Vienna.

Across the country, emergency services — including around 16,000 firefighters — braced for further catastrophe as meteorologists predicted that heavy rain would intensify what is already the worst flooding in living memory.

Dozens of roads have been blocked by floods and mudslides, said Gerhard Koch, a spokesman for Austrian automobile club OeAMTC, adding that damage from the rain over the past six days could total billions of euros (dollars) and take months to repair.

German tourists fleeing the Austrian flooding found a major autobahn in southern Bavaria shut down, with some parts under waters as deep as a meter-and-a-half (five feet).

Heavy rains in the south left at least three people dead over the weekend, while at least 10 people were injured in car accidents on rain-swept roads in northern and central Germany.

Dozens of towns remained underwater and a state of emergency was declared in several districts in southern Bavaria.

Rescue workers and police in the Czech capital were also on alert as Prague’s Vltava river began rising following the heavy rains.

Mayor Igor Nemec said that officials feared the river could overflow by Monday evening and would publish a list of streets most at risk in an attempt to warn the city’s 1.3 million residents.

At least five people have died in flooding in southern and western Bohemia, including two students, and many towns in southern Bohemia were evacuated and closed off to traffic.

And in Switzerland, activity in the river port of Basel ground to a halt after heavy rains swelled the Rhine river, forcing the closure of a section linking France and Switzerland.

Rail and road traffic was also cut between the southeastern towns of Moutiers and Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the French Alps after a storm-induced landslide sent rocks onto the tracks and the RN90 motorway.

Turkey meanwhile was dealing with a different sort of weather problem, with temperatures in the western city of Izmir reaching a record 43 degrees Celsius on Monday, the hottest since 1939, the Anatolia news agency reported.

And in southern Russia, where 58 people died after freak floods on the Black Sea coast, authorities launched a mandatory vaccination campaign against Hepatitis A and typhoid fever for the thousands of residents and holidaymakers in the popular resort region.

Some 2,000 rescue workers, including divers, continued to search for the 20 people believed to be still missing, NTV television reported.

Rescuers were also working to restore infrastructure, including re-connecting electricity and phone lines to villages in the southern region.

The latest figures said that around 350 houses were destroyed and more than 5,000 damaged by the floods.

Most of the dead were among the 30,000 holidaymakers that flocked to the region in summertime. The rains have dampened summer holidays for millions of Europeans, and forecasts have warned of more to come.—AFP