Record rainfall caused rivers to burst their banks and the intensity of the floods that followed have now claimed more than 120 lives. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) 

Towns and villages have been left devastated as buildings collapsed, and residents were left stranded.

Germany has been the hardest hit. In the country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, at least 43 people died in the flooding.

In the Rhineland-Palatinate, more than 60 people have been reported dead. About 1,300 people are unaccounted for in the Ahrweiler region, possibly due to mobile networks being down.

A state of emergency has been declared in the rural German village of Schuld, with a population of 700, where the devastation has been described as "simply catastrophic".

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