Critics accuse German government of flood warning failures

STEINBACHTAL DAM, Germany - German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer rejected criticism the government had failed to sufficiently warn people of last week's floods, as the death toll from the country's worst natural disaster in almost six decades rose above 160.

Flooding has devastated parts of Western Europe since last Wednesday, with the German states of Rhineland Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as parts of Belgium, among the worst hit. In the Ahrweiler district south of Cologne, at least 117 people were killed, and police warned that the death toll would almost certainly rise as the clean-up continues from floods whose costs insurers estimate may run as high as 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion).