Six killed, hundreds flee as Alpine floods spread

SARNEN, Switzerland, Wednesday (Reuters) At least six people have been killed and hundreds evacuated from their homes as Switzerland and its neighbours struggle with widespread flooding after days of torrential rainfall in the northern Alps.

Rivers deluged by alpine waters burst their banks in Austria and Germany on Tuesday, while mudslides blocked roads and railway tracks.

One person was killed when a swollen stream tore down eight houses in the central Swiss town of Brienz and a second flooding victim was found drowned in a river in another town.

In southern Tyrol in Austria, a rockfall caused by the flooding killed one man.

Another two people were reported missing in Switzerland, one of them a woman swept away by a river in the Eastern canton (state) of Grisons.

Two Swiss firefighters were killed by a mudslide on Monday, when floods spread from the Bernese Alps in central Switzerland to the city of St Gallen in the northeast, while an Austrian perished on Sunday.

Swiss television showed pictures of bridges that had collapsed, huge chunks of caved-in motorway, farms swept away by mudslides and people being evacuated by boat through normally busy city streets. Electricity was cut off and drinking water contaminated in several parts of Switzerland. Villages were isolated as roads were swept away and railways stopped their services.

In Switzerland's capital Berne, almost 300 people were evacuated from a residential area. Over a thousand people have been evacuated throughout the country. "The water levels are still rising. We'll probably be here for another 48 hours pumping water out of the hospital," Swiss army lieutenant Benno Stutzer, heading an army crew dealing with the floods in the village of Sarnen, told Reuters.