Two people died in China's eastern Jiangsu province as Typhoon Bebinca brought torrential rains and powerful winds before easing into a tropical storm, state media reported Tuesday.

Two residents of Zhoushi Town, about 80 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Shanghai, were hit by a falling high-voltage power line and electrocuted on Monday, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Soldiers dropped sandbags from military helicopters to reinforce river embankments and evacuated residents as the worst flooding in years spread Tuesday to a broad swath of Central Europe, taking lives and destroying homes.

Heavy flooding has affected a large part of the region in recent days, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria. There have been at least 16 deaths reported in the flooding, which follow heavy rainfall across the region.

Five thousand firefighters struggled Tuesday to contain multiple wildfires raging across northern Portugal that are blamed for causing three deaths and forcing an unknown number of residents to flee their homes.

Some 100 fires reported by national authorities stretched the firefighting brigades. Authorities have yet to give figures on how many people have had to evacuate and how many homes have been lost.