Floods kill 16 in eastern Europe

At least 16 people have died in western Ukraine and northern Romania, where severe storms and flooding have forced thousands to abandon their homes.

Thirteen of those who died, including five children, were in Ukraine.

Hundreds of towns and villages on both sides of the border have been left without electricity and many bridges have been damaged.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who has been visiting the affected region, declared it a disaster area.

Persistent heavy rain near the Prut and Dniestr rivers caused floods that damaged more than 21,000 houses, and forced up to 8,000 people to leave their homes in Ukraine, the emergency ministry said.

In Romania, about 9,000 people from 200 villages were rescued, Reuters news agency reports.

Power outages in Romania caused by the storms are reported to have affected about 20,000 people.

A child is reported to have drowned and three people were killed when a house collapsed into flood water in Maramures county.

Police and troops were deployed to pack dams with sandbags as flood waters from Ukraine were expected.