Body of a 5th victim is recovered from a submerged car after flooding in Germany

BERLIN -- A woman's body has been recovered from a car that sank into floodwater in Bavaria, police said Tuesday, bringing the confirmed death toll in flooding across southern Germany to five.

Persistent heavy rain led to widespread flooding over the weekend. While the situation has now eased in southwestern Germany, water levels remained high in parts of Bavaria, particularly on the Danube and in the Rosenheim area in the southeast. Some major railway lines, including several leading to Munich, were still blocked or disrupted.

The bodies of four people who died in the floods were found Sunday and Monday, three of them in inundated basements.

Police reported the fifth victim Tuesday in the small town of Markt Rettenbach. They said a driver who apparently had ignored barriers blocking a flooded road on Monday slipped off the road into a field and called emergency services to alert them that her car was filling with water.

Rescuers found the nearly submerged vehicle and recovered the woman's body.