dpa
Würzburg, Germany — Rescue forces continue to search for a firefighter who went missing during an operation to rescue residents from the severe floods that have roiled parts of southern Germany over the weekend.
"The search will continue," a police spokesman said on Monday morning.
Heavy rains and flooding across two states caused disruption throughout the weekend and more rain was set to come, the weather service said.
Thousands of people were evacuated over the past days and more were set to leave their homes as southern Germany was pounded by severe rainfall causing rivers to swell.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to visit the affected region on Monday.
Tens of thousands of emergency services have been in constant action as of Friday evening, particularly in the Upper Bavaria and Swabia regions, building sandbag dams, pumping water, cordoning off danger zones and rescuing people from flooded homes.
One firefighter was killed on Sunday after his rubber dinghy capsized in the Bavarian town of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, which lies some 40 kilometres north of Munich.
The firefighter still missing had been on a rubber dinghy near the Bavarian municipality of Offingen, some 100 kilometres north-west of Munich, when the boat capsized early on Sunday morning. Four other rescue workers on board were able to pull themselves to safety.
A woman in the Bavarian town of Schrobenhausen was also still missing on Monday morning.
Several villages along the Danube and Schmutter rivers were evacuated as an official pointed to concerns about a dam on Sunday evening.
Early on Monday, the German Meteorological Service (DWD) lifted all existing severe weather warnings but said that showers with the potential for heavy rain were still expected in some areas, particularly in southern Germany.
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