Heavy rains and floods lashes western Europe

Unusually heavy rains also inundated neighbouring Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, where at least four people were reported dead.

A police spokesman told AFP that Local officials had earlier reported up to seventy people missing, while at least eighteen bodies were recovered in the region around the western town of Ahrweiler alone.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was shocked by the devastation and expressed gratitude to the tireless volunteers and emergency service workers at the scene.