Drivers also needed to take note of the condition of their hired car and maintain constant awareness of drivers around them, the spokeswoman said.. The cost of repairing damage from the German flood disaster will be at least €25bn (£16bn), far higher than even the most pessimistic of first estimates suggested, the German authorities say. The new estimate follows inspection of the damage in Saxony, the state worst affected, where the water has now largely receded. Finance officials there said the devastation was infinitely worse than they had feared and that at least €15bn could be needed.Residents returning to their homes were instructed yesterday to be ruthless in destroying damaged household goods and food to prevent plagues of rats.The cost of flood damage in other afflicted states is likely to be more than €10bn, according to officials in Berlin.

But with floodwaters still rising lower down the Elbe and tens of thousands of people still being moved, that figure could also be exceeded. The new forecast of the total cost is about two- thirds higher than the initial estimate of €15bn.With the general election less than five weeks away, Mr Schr? has taken the politically high-risk decision to freeze public spending and postpone promised tax cuts to offset some of the cost of the disaster. The European Union has also offered help but mostly by taking a flexible attitude to the use of various EU funds already allocated to Germany. The amount of new money on offer will probably be no more than €1.2bn.Yesterday’s revised estimates made it likely that the German government will have to make savings as well as defer tax cuts. Mr Schr? has called the premiers of thel?er, or states, to Berlin today to decide what money is needed and how it will be raised.The premier of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, who is challenging Mr Schr? for the Chancellorship, has indicated that his centre-right Christian Social Union and its allied Christian Democratic Union will not block the postponement of tax cuts but will set terms before agreeing to back the accelerated passage of a new tax bill through the Bundestag. He is suggesting a one-off increase in corporation tax.Parts of Bavaria, including the city of Passau, were badly damaged by the flooding of the Danube but had nothing like the disaster that affected the Elbe river system in eastern and now northern Germany.The Bavarian authorities were last night trying to avert a pollution disaster, after an oil barge started to leak a petrol additive into the Danube. The barge, laden with 1,000 tons of alkylate, collided with the gates of a lock near Straubing, and all 12 tanks were torn open.

Police said the alkylate was confined within the closed lock but there was a risk of an explosion.. A woman in Ohio could be imprisoned for 15 years after exposing her three small children to severe sunburn at a county fair last week. Prosecutors have charged her on three counts of endangerment in a highly unusual case. Ms Hibbits has already spent a week in jail.She was at the fair with her three children, a two-year-old daughter and twin sons of 10 months, when an officer approached her because of the apparent distress of the children. “As soon as I looked at them, I could tell,” said Sheriff Fred Abdalla of Jefferson County in eastern Ohio “It looked like the children had been dipped in red paint. It was 95 degrees and they were literally baking.”The sheriff arrested the woman on the spot.

“If I ignore this and something happens, then shame on me,” he said. “There was no sunscreen or nothing on those children.”Ms Hibbits was offered bail on a surety of $15,000 (nearly £10,000) but could not raise it.The three children were diagnosed with second-degree burns at a nearby medical centre. “We treated the minors for second-degree sunburn,” a spokeswoman said “It means any sunburn that is beginning to blister. They were blistering.” After being treated with cold compresses and ointments, the children were released.With the possibility of the children’s mother going to prison, the state’s child welfare office has been asked to consider their future. The sheriff said: “Children’s Services is going to be involved. She just has to get a message sent to her that something has to be done.”America has witnessed recently an increasing number of cases in which the authorities have intervened against potential abuse by parents.