MUNICH - Two people were found dead and five others reported missing on Friday after wild storms lashed parts of Germany, Switzerland and France, causing flash flooding, road blockages and power cuts.

In the village of Diedorf, near Augsburg in southern Germany, an 81-year-old woman was killed and five others went missing when several basements and an underground garage were flooded. German police said divers were still searching for those missing.

Absolute chaos reigns here at the moment

a police spokesman said. In the Bavarian Alps, students were told to stay at home from school on Friday after numerous roads and railtracks were blocked.

A number of villages in the region suffered power cuts while the Baden-Wuerttemberg region recorded record rainfalls. The thunderstorms will give way to more general, but persistent rainfall on Friday.

In southeastern France, an 87-year-old woman was found dead at her home in the village of Saint-Geoire on Friday after storms lashed the region overnight. Police said the floor of the woman's house had collapsed and she had fallen into the basement. The village was cut off after local streams flooded. Another 12 villages in the region were also affected.

Rescue workers on Friday were working to clear local roads blocked by fallen trees and branches, officials said. Violent storms also swept across central Switzerland, flooding the Lucerne railway station and blocking railtracks for three hours late Thursday. The Gotthard motorway was also affected by flooding with authorities deciding to divert heavy trucks to other routes.