Forty Dead in European Floods, Many Missing, Hundreds Homeless

NIZHNAYA BAKANSKAYA, Russia – Heavy rain and wind swept southern Russia's Black Sea coast on Friday, threatening more of the flooding that has killed at least 34 people in the region. One village was hit with a 6-foot wall of water.

Six people died in other parts of Europe this week in floods born of pounding storms, some dropping record rainfall.

Choking back sobs, 72-year-old Yevdokia Aksyonova surveyed what remained of her modest home -- a few bricks, a piece of iron bedpost, and a TV antennae poking out of the mud.

The 6-foot wall of water flashed through her village of Nizhnaya Bakanskaya on Thursday. When she returned from higher ground, Aksyonova found a huge, uprooted tree had rammed her house, smashing it to bits.

"How can I live now," she said, huddling with her dog -- the only thing she did not lose -- in a shack that survived the flood. "I've lost everything I've saved during my life."

the governor of Russia's Krasnodar region, Alexander Tkachev, told ORT state television. He said the flooding had done an estimated $32 million in damage.

Residents of Nizhnaya Bakanskaya were in shock Friday after the torrent of water that washed away homes, roads and people in the village of 8,000 people. Many residents are missing but the number isn't known.

Lyuda Kostenko mourned the death of her 82-year-old mother-in-law, Darya, who was napping outdoors when the flood hit. Lyuda said she tried to save the older woman but couldn't force open the front door of her house and had to flee to the roof to save herself.

When the flood waters began to recede Friday, she found Darya, drowned.

Sixteen of the dead in Russia were found in the village of Shirokaya Balka, near the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Rescue workers there managed to save two people trapped under a collapsed house.

Rescuers discovered the body of a young girl in nearby Abrau-Dyurso. Six people camping there are missing. Four bodies were recovered from another village, also called Dyurso. The region is a popular spot for summer vacations.

Thursday's heavy rains forced the evacuation of at least 600 people, destroyed at least 20 homes and damaged 70 others in eight villages near Novorossiisk, the emergency ministry reported.

Authorities were evacuating people from Shirokaya Balka, Abrau-Dyurso and another nearby village Friday as the new storms hit the region, threatening more flooding, said Leonid Nardekov, an official with the Krasnodar Region emergencies department.

In Central Europe, severe rains caused floods that swept through towns and forced thousands to evacuate.

In the Czech Republic, a 21-year-old student was killed Thursday by a falling tree that crushed a cottage, and a firefighter died of a heart attack during a rescue operation elsewhere in the country. A 19-year-old girl was missing after her raft overturned on a swollen river, and authorities were searching for a man whose car was swept away in another river.

Two were dead in Romania and two farmers were killed in storms in Bulgaria.

Austrian rescuers worked to reach villagers stranded on rooftops, while 150 salvage personnel prepared to head to the hardest-hit parts of Lower Austria province on Saturday to reopen roads and railways silted in the flooding.

Forecasters in Austria also warned more rain was expected to soak the hardest-hit areas this weekend. Vast parts of the provinces of Upper Austria and Lower Austria remained under water.

"I've never seen anything like it -- the entire region is one big lake," Josef Puehringer, the governor of Lower Austria, told Austrian television.

The province's hydrological service called it the worst flooding since records began being kept in 1896. But water levels in the swollen Danube River were falling Friday, easing the threat of flooding in Vienna, said Christoph Langthaler, a municipal engineer.