The never-ending downpours on Saturday in the foothills of the Alps in Bavaria and Austria were harbingers.

On the night of Sunday, heavy rainfall fell, some of which lasted into Sunday evening.

Already in the morning many places were flooded - especially in the region around Berchtesgaden and in Chiemgau, where the otherwise tranquil river Ache had gotten out of control.

Rudiger Koehn

Business correspondent based in Munich.

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More and more streets were flooded, the Autobahn 95 to Garmisch-Partenkirchen had to be closed from Sindelsdorf.

There the Loisach had flooded large areas.

The train traffic had to be stopped on many routes.

The list of closures grew longer as the day progressed as the rainfall increased.

The district of Berchtesgaden in Upper Bavaria already called the disaster alarm at one o'clock in the night.

The Ache burst its banks on Saturday.

Two people were killed.

According to the district, one victim died of a natural cause.

Not only the city of Berchtesgaden is affected, but also the surrounding area as well as Schönau am Königssee, Ramsau.

Marktschellenberg and Bischofswiesen.

Less threatening in the Allgäu

Numerous houses had to be evacuated, an estimated 130 people were affected.

At least 900 firefighters, technical relief organizations and other aid organizations have been fighting against floods, slope slides and mudslides since Saturday evening.

In the three-river city of Passau, the water levels of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rose inexorably, but were still well below those in the disaster year 2013. The promenade and parking lots were flooded and, together with the adjacent streets, closed on Saturday.

The police towed cars that the owners had not reparked despite flood warnings.

Flood barriers were installed.

The water levels of the Danube rose so much that reporting level three was reached.

It says that properties will be flooded and basements will be full of water.

In the Allgäu the situation was less threatening because the rainfalls were less severe than in the eastern regions.

The level was increased on the Iller in Kempten.

In the Bavarian Oberland, the road connections to Garmisch-Partenkirchen were interrupted, as was the road on Lake Walchensee, which closed an important bypass and alternative route.

Train connections between Munich and Innsbruck were affected.

Innsbruck partially under water

The operation between Eschenlohe and Oberau was stopped because of the massive flooding by the Loisach. In addition, the route between Mittenwald and Scharnitz on the German-Austrian border was closed on Sunday morning. Trains from Innsbruck ended in the small border town of Scharnitz. The trains from Munich only went to Weilheim because of a planned construction site. Because Bundesstraße 2 was not passable, there was no replacement traffic between Garmisch and Scharnitz.

Neighboring Hallein near Salzburg was hit just as hard in Austria - as were the cities of Salzburg and Vienna as well as the state of Tyrol. The civil defense alarm was called for the border town of Hallein because of the floods. The old town was already flooded by the masses of water on Saturday evening, people had to be removed as a precaution. A brook had turned into a torrent. According to the city, some buildings and parts of the infrastructure are badly damaged. There is no information about missing or injured persons. In Kufstein in Tirol, a border town on the way to Innsbruck, parts of the city were under water on Sunday.