Four people died and several more were injured in southern Germany after violent storms with torrential rains caused severe flooding, authorities said on Monday.

One of those killed was a 13-year-old girl who was hit by a train Sunday while seeking shelter from the rains under a railway bridge.

A boy, 12, who was with her was not physically injured but had to receive trauma counselling, said police in the southern city of Aalen.

In Schwaebisch Gmuend near the city of Stuttgart, a volunteer firefighter died on Sunday trying to rescue a man trapped in a shaft of a flooded railway station, municipal authorities said.

The man who was trapped was also presumed dead although neither body has been recovered, according to local police.

In Weissbach, just to the north, a 60-year-old man died in a flooded underground garage on the same day.

The regional authorities in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg put the number of injured at around 10.

A number of people had to be rescued from cars trapped in the floods.

National news agency DPA said a river broke its banks in Braunsbach, destroying one house and damaging several others.

Eyewitnesses posted videos on social network sites showing cars being carried away by the floods and crashing into shop windows.

The head of one rural district in Schwaebisch Hall, Michael Knaus, said that more rain fell in the space of a few hours than normally falls over several months.

State authorities said that as many as 7,000 firefighters, police and rescue workers were called out in some 2,200 incidents.

At least six dead in Texas floods
Washington (AFP) May 30, 2016 - Six people were killed in Texas flooding as rivers burst their banks, sweeping into homes and cars, state officials said Monday.

Drenching, and in many cases record-setting heavy rain in areas west of Houston, swamped the Brazos River and killed people in Washington, Travis and Kendall counties.

So far, Washington county appeared hardest hit with four confirmed deaths. Three of the dead were swept away by rushing waters, Texas emergency management said.

The city of Brenham said it was struggling after 19 inches (48 centimeters) of rain fell in 48 hours. Locals waded waist-deep through city streets, impassable for vehicles.

The deluge actually stopped late Friday. But the area remains soaked and rivers, with nowhere for the water to go, have melded with parts of the Brazos river and in some cases dragged locals to their death.