Since June, the flooding in central and eastern Europe has caused 103 deaths while fires in drought-stricken Portugal, Spain and France have killed 37, according to figures compiled by AFP.

Portuguese firefighters said initially Thursday they had brought under control all the blazes which have ravaged the centre and north of the country over the past two weeks thanks to the arrival of cooler weather.

But seven smaller blazes later flared again, fought by 200 firefighters and 10 water-dropping aircraft.

Wildfires have killed 15 people, including 10 firefighters, destroyed more than 100 homes and charred at least 180,000 hectares (some 450,000 acres) of land since the start of the year.

Meanwhile flood waters receded across central and eastern Europe, but the death toll continued to rise in Romania and Austria.

"Unfortunately, we are expecting the number of victims to rise hour by hour," Romanian Interior Minister Vasile Blaga said at a news conference on Thursday.

Thirteen people have died in Romania in the past three days and three more are missing, including a four-year-old girl.

The latest victims brought the toll from extreme weather in Romania to 66 since the beginning of this year, Blaga said.

Detailing the extent of the disaster, Blaga said nearly 2,000 people had been evacuated from their homes over the past two weeks and 400 houses had been swept away by flood waters. Damage is estimated at over 1.5 billion euros (1.8 billion dollars).

In Austria, an 81-year-old man on Thursday became the fourth victim in three days of heavy flooding, as 14 army helicopters were airlifting food and medicine to some 5,000 stranded tourists in Paznauntal, in the western province of Tyrol.

An Austrian newspaper has put the cost of the damage at some 500 million euros (615 million dollars) and the government is seeking aid from the European Union.

In Switzerland, authorities continued to evacuate residents from flood-stricken areas as rescue workers battled to remove debris that threatened dams and bridges even as the waters subsided.

Six people were dead or missing after four days of flooding in Switzerland's north, centre and east. The cost of the damage is put at a billion Swiss francs (795 million dollars).

The disastrous flooding over the past four days has triggered an increase in the number of earth tremors, the Swiss seismological service said. The unusually frequent seismic activity reached its strongest level early Tuesday, at the peak of the Swiss flooding. Since then, the number of tremors has dropped, it added.

Rail traffic remained erratic in many central and eastern regions.

Meanwhile Germany registered its first victim from heavy rains when a 28-year-old man was swept into the water after he and two friends went out in a rubber dinghy on a raging river near the southern Bavarian city of Rosenheim late on Wednesday, according to the police.

On Thursday rivers that rose to record levels earlier in the week continued to recede or remained below the hazardous heights that had been expected, authorities said.

As Bavaria began mopping up, Environment Minister Juergen Trittin estimated that the floods caused damage of more than 100 million euros (122 million dollars).

The water levels also subsided in Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia, all affected by the flooding in the past week, as well as in Bulgaria where 26 died in the heavy rains since June.

Swiss Floods Trigger More Earth Tremors
Geneva (AFP) Aug 25, 2005 - The disastrous flooding that has swept through Switzerland over the past four days has triggered an increase in the number of earth tremors, the Swiss seismological service said Thursday.

The unusually frequent seismic activity reached its strongest level early Tuesday, at the peak of the Swiss flooding which has left four people dead and two others missing, the service said in a statement.

Since then, the number of tremors has dropped, it added.

Between Monday and Wednesday, the seismological service registered 47 tremors compared with a normal average reading of two mini-tremors per day in Switzerland.

The tremors, which are close to the surface, have been concentrated in the center of the Alpine country, the region most affected by the floods. Most of the tremors have registered 1 and 2 on the Richter scale, the strongest one registering 2.4.

Some people have reported being aware of the tremors but they have not been strong enough to cause any damage, seismologists said.

The tremors, however, probably contributed to the number of mud slides in the past few days.

Floods can increase the likelihood of earthquakes as the waters create conditions for subterranean rock slides, a phenomenon that was already noticeable during this summer's bad weather, a seismologist told the Swiss news agency ATS.

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