Four killed in German flash floods: Towns devastated as raging floodwater flattens houses and sweeps away cars after storms cause rivers to burst their banks

At least four people including a young girl have died after flash floods wreaked havoc across Germany, destroying houses and sweeping away cars.

Submerged cars are abandoned in a flooded underpass in Oberhausen, Germany, as torrential rain caused havoc across the country

One man aged around 60 drowned in an underground car park when it filled with water too quickly for him to be able to escape in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

In the town of Schwaebisch Gmuend, a firefighter was killed as he tried to rescue another person in a flooded railway station who then also died.
Elsewhere in Baden-Wuerttemberg, police said a 13-year-old girl was killed after being hit by an intercity train while apparently seeking shelter from the storm under a railway bridge.
On Saturday, lightning strikes in northern France and southwest Germany left nine people seriously hurt.

The regional authorities in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg put the number of injured at below 10.
Violent storms and torrential rain on Sunday evening and during the night caused severe damage in the regional state.

Police looks at partially submerged cars standing abandoned in a flooded underpass in Oberhausen, Germany, on Monday

A number of people had to be rescued from their cars trapped in the floods.

The German news agency DPA said that a river broke its banks in Braunsbach, destroying one house and damaging several others.
Eyewitnesses posted videos on social network sites showing cars being carried away by the floods and crashing into shop windows.

The head of one rural district in Schwaebisch Hall, Michael Knaus, said that more rain fell in the space of a few hours than normally falls over several months.
The Baden-Wuerttemberg authorities said that as many as 7,000 firefighters, police officers and rescue workers were called out in some 2,200 incidents.

Around 35 people were injured in the west German village of Hoppstädten when lightning struck the pitch at the end of a children's football match.

German luxury carmaker Audi has also stopped production at its second-biggest plant in southwestern Germany because of flooding.

Parts of the factory, where over 16,000 people build Audi's high-margin models such as the A8 saloon and the R8 sports car, have been flooded following heavy rains over night, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
The spokeswoman couldn't say when production would resume or how many workers were affected by the disruptions.

Audi is due to report first-quarter results on Wednesday after delaying publication due to VW's diesel emissions scandal.



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