Authorities issued flood warnings in parts of northern and western Austria on Friday after the Danube River and other waterways burst their banks following two days of heavy rain, according to AP. Workers used sandbags in an attempt to control flooding in the Vienna suburb of Klosterneuburg after the swollen Danube crested, flooding a train station and a regional highway. Floodwaters raged through the town of Steyr in the province of Upper Austria, where public broadcaster ORF showed dramatic footage of streets turned into churning rivers. No deaths or injuries were reported. In Lower Austria province, the Danube's water levels reached a 20-year high and officials were asking some residents in vulnerable low-lying towns near the border with Slovakia to leave their homes and move to higher ground as a precaution. Meanwhile, snowfall in high elevations has stranded cows on mountain pastures where they spent the summer months grazing. The fire department in Bad Aussee, Styria, said that feed would have to be transported up to the pastures by helicopter Friday. Pilgrims making a trip to Mariazell, a famous shrine to the Virgin Mary about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Vienna, were also left stranded by snow, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported. On Saturday, the pope holds an open-air Mass there to commemorate the 850th anniversary of the shrine's founding. Further heavy rainfall Friday disrupted train traffic along a route to Mariazell which some 2,300 pilgrims are expected to use Saturday, the Austria Press Agency reported.
