PRAGUE (AP) — The death toll rose in central European countries on Sunday after days of heavy rain caused widespread flooding and compelled mass evacuations.
Several Central European countries are already affected by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Slovakia and Hungary might be next to be hit, as a low-pressure system from northern Italy has been dumping record rainfall within the region since Thursday.
Six people have died in Romania, one each in Austria and Poland. According to police, 4 individuals are missing within the Czech Republic after being swept away by the floodwaters.
It's not over yet
Most parts of the Czech Republic have been affected, with authorities issuing the best flood warning for around 100 locations across the country, however the situation has been worst in two northeastern regions, which have seen the heaviest rainfall in recent days, including the Jeseníky Mountains near the Polish border.
In the town of Opava, as much as 10,000 people (out of a population of around 56,000) were asked to go away their homes and move to higher ground. Rescue staff took people to safety by boat after they arrived in a neighbourhood flooded by the raging Opava River.
“There is no reason to wait,” Mayor Tomáš Navrátil told Czech public radio, saying the situation was worse than the last devastating flood in 1997, which became referred to as the “flood of the century.”
“We must focus on saving lives,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Czech public television on Sunday. His government was as a result of meet on Monday to evaluate the damage.
The worst “is not yet behind us,” the prime minister warned as floods ravaged the country.
President Petr Pavel sounded more optimistic, saying: “It is obvious that we have learned a lesson from the last crisis.”
At least 4 missing and villages cut off
Thousands of individuals also needed to be evacuated in the just about completely flooded towns of Krnov and Cesky Tesin. In Ostrava and Bohumin, the Oder, which flows into Poland, reached extreme water levels, triggering mass evacuations.
Ostrava, the capital of the region, is the third largest Czech city. Mayor Jan Dohnal said the town would need to expect significant traffic disruptions in the approaching days. Almost no trains were running within the region.
Towns and villages within the Jeseniky Mountains, including the town center of Jeseniky Mountains, were flooded by the raging waters and cut off from the skin world. Streets become rivers. The military sent a helicopter to assist with the evacuation.
Jesenik Mayor Zdenka Blistanova told Czech public television that several houses in her and other nearby towns had been destroyed by the floods. Numerous bridges and roads were also badly damaged.
Around 260,000 households across the country were without electricity on Sunday morning and traffic was paralyzed on many roads, including the principal D1 motorway.
A firefighter dies when Lower Austria is asserted a disaster area
A firefighter “slipped on a staircase” while pumping out a flooded cellar within the town of Tulln, the pinnacle of the Lower Austrian fire service, Dietmar Fahrafellner, told reporters on Sunday.
The authorities declared the whole state of Lower Austria within the north-east of the country a disaster area. 10,000 emergency staff have to this point evacuated 1,100 houses there. Emergency personnel have begun establishing emergency shelters for residents who had to go away their homes as a result of the flooding.
The municipality of Lilienfeld in Lower Austria, with around 25,000 inhabitants, is cut off from the skin world. The authorities there asked residents to boil tap water as a precaution.
In Lower Austria, the situation along the Kamp River, which flows into the Danube, is especially dangerous.
The Ottenstein reservoir on the Kamp still has a buffer function, but could reach its limits in the subsequent few hours and further flooding could occur, experts say.
After an emergency meeting on the Interior Ministry in Vienna on Saturday afternoon, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told journalists that the situation was “continuing to deteriorate”.
He said 2,400 soldiers were able to support relief efforts in Austria, with 1,000 of them being sent to the disaster area in Lower Austria where dams began to interrupt.
“We are experiencing difficult and dramatic hours in Lower Austria. For many Lower Austrians, these are probably the most difficult hours of their lives,” said Lower Austria's governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
In Vienna, the Vienna River overflowed its banks, flooding houses and making it obligatory to evacuate houses near the river.
Romania reports further flood victims
Romanian authorities said on Sunday that two more people had died within the hard-hit eastern Romanian county of Galati, after 4 deaths were reported there a day earlier in consequence of unprecedented rainfall.
Dramatic floods in Poland
One person is believed to have died in floods within the southwest of Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday.
Tusk said the situation across the town of Klodzko, which has a population of 25,000 and is positioned in a valley within the Sudetes near the border with the Czech Republic, was “dramatic”. In some cases, helicopters were used to rescue people from rooftops.
In Glucholazy, the water overflowed a river dam and flooded streets and houses. Mayor Paweł Szymkowicz said: “We are drowning” and appealed to residents to evacuate to higher ground.
A vulnerable bridge in the town collapsed under the pressure of the flood, and in Stronie Śląskie, a police station constructing was destroyed after the floods broke through the town's dam. In the Kłodzko Valley region on the border with the Czech Republic, submerged cars might be seen in lots of places, while a brand new flood wave was expected there.
In the town of Jelenia Gora, which has a population of 75,000, streets in the town center were flooded after one in all the dams on the Bobr River broke. City authorities warned residents that they may need to evacuate as more flooding was moving toward the town.
Power and communications have been disrupted in some flooded areas, and a few regions may depend on the satellite-based Starlink service, Tusk said.
A hotter atmosphere as a result of human-induced climate change can result in more intense rainfall.
Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Philipp-Moritz Jenne and Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna and Stephen McGrath in Sibiu, Romania, contributed to this report.
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