Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds more reported as a result of devastating floods which have hit Germany and neighbouring countries in the last 24 hours as a result of unprecedented levels of torrential rainfall.

Map : Courtesy Google Maps

Badly affected area include North Rhine-Westphalia, where at least 30 people have died, in North Rhine-Westphalia state, and Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany where at least 28 people have died.

Low-lying areas and floodplains in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have also been severely impacted.

Speaking at a press conference German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was afraid that the full extent of the tragedy would not be seen for the next few days – she described the situation as a "catastrophe."

Rivers burst their banks across western Germany and neighbouring Belgium after two days of heavy rain which resulted in buildings being have been washed away, hundreds of thousands of properties left without power and homeowners left stranded on the upper floors of their homes.

Several villages in the Rhine-Sieg county south of Cologne below the Steinbach reservoir have been ordered to evacuate due to fears that the dam might break. The village of Schuld in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler has been particularly badly hit.

The efforts of the emergency services responding to the flooding have been hampered with phone and internet connections down in parts of the region.

Westnetz, Germany’s biggest power distribution grid company said some 200,000 properties were without electricity and that blocked roads meant many substations could not be reached for repairs.

The flooding followed an extreme weather warning issued by the German weather service DWD for parts of three western states – part of the same weather system which led to flooding in parts of London after heavy rain earlier this week.

The latest update issued by DWD at 11.45 am today is warning of thunderstorms and the risk of further heavy rain in a short period of time, continuing this afternoon and evening and on into the weekend.