Austria on Wednesday announced a package of measures in response to severe flooding across the country, including a tripling of the federal disaster fund and tax postponements for affected companies.

Exceptionally heavy rainfall has been pounding Central Europe and has prompted deadly flooding in the region, with four new deaths reported in Poland, three in Czech Republic and one in Romania.

While storm Boris, which brought the enormous rainfall, was caused by the rather unusual collision of polar air and warm, humid air from the unusually hot Mediterranean, the deeper causes lie in the dramatic acceleration of climate change.