VIENNA, Aug 15 (AFP) - The Austrian government is considering scaling back plans to buy new combat planes to cope with the billions of euros in damage from flooding that spread to more towns in the northeast on Thursday.

Austrians in villages along the Czech border watched anxiously as the waters of the Thaya and March rivers swelled after flooding elsewhere in the Alpine republic left seven dead.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel announced that the government may decide to cut back its order of 24 new Eurofighter Typhoon fighter planes or delay delivery scheduled for 2005 by a year.

A government proposal to cut taxes in 2003 has been dropped, Schuessel said.

"The priority is reconstruction" following the floods, he said in a television interview.

The government decided in July to purchase 24 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets for 1.8 billion euros (dollars) from a consortium composed of Britain's BAE Systems, Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa), Italy's Alenia and the Spanish group Casa.

The contract for the fighter planes and the tax cut divided the coalition government with the extreme right Freedom Party saying that only 18 aircraft will be purchased.

While a full assessment of the flood damage has yet to be made, the governors of the hardest-hit provinces estimate the cost to reach as high as three billion euros.

A first package of measures to cope with the disaster totalling 650 million euros was unveiled Wednesday.

The Danube overflowed in the Tulln region, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) upstream from Vienna, overnight despite assurances from authorities that the river had reached its peak.

In central Austria, where the floods were most devastating, cleanup operations were underway as tens of thousands of people started to come to terms with losing everything after days of devastating heavy rains.

pmr/cml/ss Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 151017)