At least 80 people have died and hundreds more are unaccounted for in Germany after some of the worst flooding in decades.
Record rainfall in western Europe caused rivers to burst their banks, devastating the region.
Belgium has also reported at least 12 dead after the extreme weather, which political leaders have blamed on climate change.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged full support for the victims.
In Germany, the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia were worst hit.
During a visit to a hard-hit area, Armin Laschet, premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, blamed the extreme weather on global warming, saying climate protection measures must be accelerated.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that human-induced climate change would bring pulses of extreme rainfall such as this one.
The Netherlands is also badly affected, with further flooding in Luxembourg and Switzerland.
In the western German district of Ahrweiler, up to 1,300 people are unaccounted for, the authorities say. A spokeswoman for the local government said mobile networks had been put out of action, making it impossible to contact many people.
The village of Schuld (population 700) was almost entirely destroyed. A major dam near the Belgian border, the Rurtalsperre, is at capacity and overflowing slightly, officials say.
We met the elderly man trying to get into a village which was all but destroyed. His grandchildren were there, he said, but he couldn’t get hold of their parents.
Even the authorities say they don’t know for sure how many people are missing. There is no phone signal in much of the region, making communication all but impossible. But the death toll is expected to rise today and, with every hour that passes the magnitude of this disaster becomes ever clearer.
All along the River Ahr there are flooded homes, broken bridges, the twisted remains of campsites and caravan parks. For many of the dazed people we met surveying the damage here, it’s almost impossible to imagine clearing up and starting again.
Some 15,000 police, soldiers and emergency service workers are at the scene to aid with search and rescue, while helicopters picked stranded residents from roof tops and tanks cleared roads of fallen trees and debris.
In the town of Erfstadt-Blessem, floodwaters caused a row of houses to collapse wholly or partially. Calls for help could be heard coming from the buildings, whose residents could only be reached by boat.
Speaking during a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington DC, Mrs Merkel expressed her “deepest condolences” to everyone across the region who had lost loved ones after “a day of worry and despair”.
“I fear we will only see the full extent of this tragedy in the coming days,” she said. She also pledged government support with rescue efforts and with reconstruction, saying to the German people that the government “will not leave you alone in this difficult, terrible hour”.
In Belgium, dramatic footage of the floods showed cars being swept away along a street in the city of Verviers. A curfew was in place overnight because of the risk of looting.
In Other News: [email protected] PHOTO: LULU MENZIWA(MADAM B) STRIKES AGAIN
As of late no woman in Mzansi has a bigger booty as Lulu Menziwa’s. What is more surprising is her package looks to be getting even bigger.
As anyone could have guessed men on social media can’t hold themselves but say what they would want to do to…Learn more
