The death toll from devastating floods in western Germany and Belgium rose to at least 170 on Saturday after rivers and torrential rains caused homes to collapse and damaged roads and power lines.
About 143 people died in the floods, Germany's worst natural disaster in more than half a century.
Police estimates that 98 of those killed were in the Arweiler region, south of Cologne.
Hundreds missing
Hundreds are still missing or inaccessible because rising waters prevent access to many areas, and communications are still cut in some places.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Irwistadt in North Rhine-Westphalia, where at least 45 people died in the disaster.
He stressed that the full assessment of the extent of the destruction may take weeks, and that the reconstruction is expected to cost several billion euros.
"We have to expect to find more victims," said Caroline Weitsel, mayor of Irfstadt in Rhenania, north-Westphalia, which was hit by a terrible landslide caused by the floods.
Authorities said they evacuated about 700 residents late on Friday after a dam collapsed in the city of Wassenberg, near Cologne.
On Sunday, Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to travel to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where the flood-ravaged village of Sjöld is located.
A spokeswoman for the regional interior ministry said the visit would take place in the afternoon.
Merkel had pledged to provide "short-term and long-term support from the government" to the stricken municipalities.
Floods destroyed several regions in Germany and displaced thousands (Reuters)
Belgium and the Netherlands
In Belgium, the death toll has risen to 27, according to the National Crisis Center, which coordinates relief efforts.
The center added that 103 people are "missing or unreachable".
He explained that it is possible that the reason for the inaccessibility of some is that they could not recharge cell phones or they are in hospitals without identification papers.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croo on Saturday went to inspect the area that suffered "unprecedented" losses in the Meuse Basin.
Tuesday was declared an official day of mourning.
Over the past few days, the floods that have engulfed the states of Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and eastern Belgium have cut off electricity and communications for entire residential areas.
Heavy rains also fell on Luxembourg and the Netherlands, inundating many areas and forcing the authorities to evacuate thousands of people in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
Emergency services in the Netherlands remained on high alert as river flooding threatened towns and villages across the southern province of Limburg.
Climate change
These devastating floods have brought the issue of climate change back to the center of Germany's election campaign on the eve of the September 26 vote, with Merkel leaving power after 16 years at the helm.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the storms that swept Europe were "undoubtedly" caused by climate change, while German President Steinmeier called for a more "resolute" battle against climate warming in light of the disaster.
For his part, Armin Laschet of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, who is most likely to succeed her after the elections, spoke of an "unprecedented disaster" in the state of Rinania in North Westphalia from which he hails, and in Rhenania in the Palatinate.
Der Spiegel news magazine reported that the relationship between global warming and extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall that caused floods will shed light on the candidates' response to the issue of climate change.
"There will be assurances in the coming days that this is not a problem for the campaign, but of course it is," she said, adding, "People want to know how politicians will lead them in a situation like this."
German reinsurance giant Munich Re said countries should expect the "frequency and severity" of natural disasters to increase due to climate change, calling for preventive steps that "will, at the end of the studies, be less costly".