On Thursday evening authorities in Rottal-Inn, a district which abuts the Austrian border in southern Bavaria, confirmed that a sixth victim of the extreme weather had been found dead.

There is still a huge operation underway to clear the debris and search for the missing, a spokesperson for the district told The Local.

Over 400 volunteers from the fire service are in operation, as are 120 members of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), and almost 100 police officers.

“It is a picture of devastation here,” the spokesperson said. “Whole houses have been ripped apart. It’s brutal.”

But she added that the water levels were falling back.

“The weather forecasters say there is rain on the way. But, thank God, the sky is blue at the moment.”

Gallery: 10 pictures that capture the tragedy wrought by the floods

More information has also been released about the other victims of the flooding, which destroyed large parts of the towns of Simbach am Inn and Triftern on Wednesday evening.

In one particularly tragic incident, three generations of a family were killed, as a grandmother (78), mother (56) and daughter (28) died after being trapped at home by the rising waters.

In another case an 80-year-old woman’s body was found kilometres away from her house which had been partially destroyed by the ferocious waters.

The body of a 75-year-old man was also found by divers on Thursday.

But several more people are still missing, and families are waiting anxiously for news from loved ones whom they have still failed to contact.

The cost of the damage in the region of Lower Bavaria will come to hundreds of million of euros, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.

In the district of Rottal-Inn alone, 500 houses have been damaged, the main road has been partially ruined and a bridge has sunk a few metres into the ground, local councillor Michael Fahmüller told the Munich-based broadsheet.

Bad weather continued to affect other parts of the country on Thursday, too.

In western Germany, two men were badly injured after being struck by lightning on Thursday evening. The men from Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, were brought to hospital for treatment.

The weather men are warning that the danger is not over yet either.

“New rainfalls are coming to Germany and they have the potential to turn into storms,” said a spokesperson for the German Weather Service (DWD).

The meteorologist could not give more exact information on where the storms are to be expected.

Storm warning have subsided, with most of the country having no warning (green). Source DWD