Southern Scandinavia soaked by rain

Jul 6, 2007, 8:23 GMT

Copenhagen/Oslo - Rain, blustery winds and poor visibility forced Norwegian Queen Sonja Friday to cancel a scheduled tour with the royal yacht along the inland waterway Blindleia in southern Norway.

Instead of eating a picnic lunch on an island in the fjord, the queen and visiting European royals who were celebrating her 70th birthday were to remain on the royal yacht before continuing later to the town of Arendal, broadcaster NRK said.

Southern Norway has experienced several days of heavy rainfall and rain-swollen rivers threatened to burst their banks in several communities north-west of Oslo.

The home guard assisted emergency services Thursday to secure timber that threatened to drift in Flesberg.

Early Friday, 75 camping trailers were moved from a flooded camping site in Hokksund.

Several roads were also closed over flooding.

In Denmark, the four-day Roskilde festival got underway Thursday but hundreds of festival visitors abandoned their rain-soaked tents in the evening, reports said.

A sports centre in Roskilde, west of the Danish capital Copenhagen has been opened to offer frozen visitors a chance to get dry and shower.

Organizers urged visitors to use public transport as many cars were stuck in the soft ground on newly made parking areas, and police said that ambulances would likely be unable to negotiate all sections of the festival site.

Rescue services company Falck received some 450 phone calls from home owners over flooded cellars in the eastern part of Denmark where roads were also flooded, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

In neighbouring Sweden, the Swedish Road Administration issued a warning of flooded roads including several national highways in the southern province of Skane.