"I don't want to create panic but there are dykes that might give in at any moment because of the rise in the Danube and strong gusts of wind," said Interior Minister Vasile Blaga, warning villagers not to try to return to their homes.

As heavy rain beat down, another 8,000 people were being readied for evacuation in southern Romania, said Blaga, adding that some 6,200 residents had already been forced to flee waterlogged homes along the river so far this week.

Under menacing clouds that brooded over the entire region, teams of emergency civil workers were joined by troops, police, firefighters and volunteers in the race against time to secure the Danube's bulging banks.

But as nerves began to fray, some victims expressed anger over the handling of the disaster effort by the authorities.

"For three days we've been waiting in vain for help from the authorities. My house has been totally destroyed by the floods. I don't know where to go," raged Ioan Parvu, from the village of Negoi.

The desperate struggle to contain the rising waters was hampered by the flooding of some 500 kilometres (310 miles) of roads.

The effort came too late for the residents of some 170 houses that have already been destroyed and nearly 700 others damaged by the surge of water, according to interior ministry figures.

In Hungary, as a swollen Danube tributary, the Tisza river, topped the 10 metre-mark (33 feet), a day after breaching its record level, officials said more than 18,000 people were engaged in the fight to save their homes.

Downstream where the same river enters Serbia, the floodwaters had risen by late the day to their highest-ever level of 9.35 metres (30 feet).

Serbian teams stacked white sandbags to shore up dykes along the most critical part of the river, between Novi Knezevac and Senta, despite the wet weather that is forecast to continue for the next few days.

"The rain that fell in great quantities last night isn't expected to endanger the flood defences, although the work became more difficult," said Zvonko Kocic of Serbia's water authority.

Kocic added that emergency crews would also race to strengthen sand embankments on the Danube that have been built to protect the towns of Gradiste and Golubac, on the border with Romania.

The Danube is expected to reach a new peak later in Bulgaria, where the town of Nikopol was partly flooded and some riverside houses were evacuated.

Later Wednesday, the Bulgarian government comfortably survived a no confidence motion launched by the opposition, which had accused it of failing to handle natural disasters in the country in the past few years.

Serbia's agriculture ministry said the flood damage to thousands of hectares of cropland would cost the crucial sector at least 3.1 billion dinars (35.6 million euros, 44 million dollars), but a full estimate could only be determined once the water levels subsided.

Floodwater levels have broken 100-year records in several rivers across the Balkans this week, but the region has shown better preparedness to deal with the problem of melting snows, so far preventing any loss of human lives.

One such measure was the recent decision by Romanian authorities deliberately to flood thousands of hectares (acres) of farmland and forests in a bid to protect inhabited southern districts.

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