With river waters slowly receding, Germans in dozens of cities cleaned up flood-damaged homes Friday and opened stores in hopes of ringing up a few sales before Christmas.
Waters from some of the worst flooding this century also were receding in northern France, but officials reported a second death there. A woman in her 80s from Volmunster village died of hypothermia after stumbling in her stable, where she had gone to see if her animals were safe.The flooding has also claimed at least four lives in Germany and one in Belgium.
Officials in the hard-hit southern region of Saarland said overnight rain again was pushing rivers and streams over their banks.
The flooding blocked roads and stopped shipping on the mighty Rhine River, Europe's main north-south commercial waterway.
While the worst threat had passed in many areas along the Rhine, Mosel and other rivers, several cities were still operating under emergency conditions.
Parts of Bonn, the seat of the German government, were awash in the Rhine's murky waters. Hundreds of homes were without electricity.
Cleanup efforts in Cologne, where rising waters drove 25,000 people from their homes earlier in the week, were hampered by thousands of curiosity-seekers headed to the city's old town on Christmas Eve.