In parts of the Balkans, the Danube recently reached its highest level in more than 100 years.

The dangerous tide of water has been moving eastwards beyond Belgrade towards Bulgaria and Romania, where authorities deliberately flooded fields in a bid to spare towns after a similar situation there last year claimed dozens of lives.

Some 3,000 residents of the Romanian village of Rast were evacuated before the surging Danube entirely submerged their homes. Some 115 houses were completely destroyed and another 600 were damaged, local officials said.

Dolj district chief Nicolae Giugea said 10,000 residents of four villages in the area were on standby for evacuation if the water continued to rise.

In Serbia, civil teams backed by the police force and army were reinforcing about 250 kilometres (155 miles) of dykes lined with white sandbags on the bulging banks of several rivers.

Using heavy earth-moving equipment, tractors and industrial trucks, the crews shored up the defences of Veliko Gradiste and Golubac, two Serbian towns on the border with Romania that are expected to bear the brunt of the flooded Danube within hours.

The situation was made worse by swelling Danube tributaries, including the Tisa and Begej rivers, which meet at the town of Titel north of the Serbian capital.

"I don't think I've ever seen the Tisa like this," said Milan, a 52-year-old resident of Titel.

Near Zrenjanin, about 70 kilometres (44 miles) north of Belgrade, the only features that can be seen above the flooded plains are the road linking the town with the capital, and the tops of trees.

"Three hectares of my land is under water," said Ljubomir, a 43-year-old farmer from the area, in a flat and fertile region which is considered Serbia's breadbasket.

"I planned to sow wheat and corn, but who knows whether I will be able to sow anything if the water does not subside in the next four weeks."

A restaurant on the banks of the Tisa was surrounded by water, while a military vessel scraped sand from the bottom of the Begej, to be used for filling bags to protect embankments.

Some 300 houses were evacuated in the village of Stari Kostolac, after the floodwaters spilled across the banks of the Mlava River, which also flows into the Danube.

Closer to Belgrade in the town of Smederevo, workers were battling to protect the main train station despite a fall in water levels after the Danube reached its highest recorded level there.

In the capital itself, where the Danube meets another major river, the Sava, authorities warned people not to go to a popular area surrounding an artificial lake, Ada Ciganlija, describing it as a "zone of high risk".

"Our principal concern is the survival of the dykes," Nikola Marjanovic, of Serbia's water authority, told B92 radio.

"They are exposed to continuous pressure from the water of the Tisa for a long period and could yield," Marjanovic said. The Tisa, which is also in flood, joins the Danube north of Belgrade.

In Bulgaria, a state of emergency was maintained along the Danube, with the government warning the water levels were expected to reach a peak of up to 990 centimetres in the northwestern town of Vidin on Wednesday.

Authorities set up a tent camp outside the town in case they needed to evacuate and shelter people from low-lying areas.

In the northern town of Nikopol, where riverside streets and houses were severely flooded at the weekend, water levels were stable at about 855 centimetres. The floods had forced the evacuation of the town hospital on Sunday.

Further downstream, a port on the Danube remained closed, while the customs agency near the northwestern town of Ruse was preparing to halt traffic crossing the river from Bulgaria to Romania, authorities said.

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