Police and rescue services find more bodies washed up from floods in Greece and Spain as large parts of southern Europe try to come to terms with the devastation.
ADVERTISEMENTThe death toll from severe flooding in central Greece rose to 10 people on Friday, while another four remained missing, the country's civil protection minister said.
Rescue crews in helicopters and boats ferried hundreds of people from inundated villages to safety.
Flooding triggered by rainstorms also hit neighbouring Bulgaria and Turkey, killing a total of 22 people in all three countries since the rains began on Tuesday.
In Greece, the rainstorms turned streams into raging torrents that burst dams, washed away roads and bridges and hurled cars into the sea, and many of the flooded areas were left without power or drinking water.
Authorities have said some regions received twice the average annual rainfall for Athens in the space of just 12 hours.
Although the rainstorms had stopped by Friday, floodwater continued to rise after the Pineios River burst its banks near the city of Larissa, one of Greece's largest cities with a population of around 150,000, triggering evacuation orders for several areas.
“The situation is tragic,” Larissa resident Ioanna Gana told Greece’s Open television channel, adding that water levels in her flooded neighbourhood were rising “minute by minute.”
By late Friday, officials said that more than 2,500 people had been rescued, including 420 plucked from the flooded areas by helicopter from 14 villages.
Spain: Two more bodies found in stream
Spain's Guardia Civil has found two bodies in Aldea del Fresno, a village that was severely affected by the torrential rains on Sunday, and is now proceeding to identify them, according to the Government Delegation in Madrid.
The search operation were carried out by the Guardia Civil to locate a middle-aged man who was dragged along with his family by the Alberche river in Aldea de Fresno, as well as an 83-year-old man taken by the current in Villamanta.
A woman is still missing from Sunday night when she was driving her vehicle in the municipality of Valmojado, to the southwest of Madrid.