Berlin  - Germany was cleaning up Wednesday after yet another night of violent thunderstorms and flash floods in several regions.

In Eisenberg, east of Frankfurt, a woman, 55, was swept away Tuesday evening by a wall of water coming down an open drain, and a man who sprang to her rescue was also washed away, but rescuers pulled both out of the water alive.

In Killertal, a valley in Germany's south-west, 20 police were deployed to disperse sightseers who had come to see the locations where three women were drowned Monday in their cars in flash floods.

Police said the onlookers were blocking roads and hampering the clean-up operation. Flooding devastated Jungingen, a town with a population of 1,500 in the valley, washing away the foundations of some homes.

The onset of summer in Germany has brought days of isolated thunderstorms of exceptional strength and some tornadoes.

In the port city of Hamburg, a newspaper, the Hamburger Abendblatt, printed a photograph of a funnel cloud descending towards the central city Tuesday afternoon, but said it did not touch the ground and a full tornado failed to form.

Forecasters predicted more thunderstorms Wednesday in a central band of Germany. (dpa)