By David W Cerny and Marek Strzelecki
LIPOVA LAZNE, Czech Republic (Reuters) – One individual drowned in southwest Poland and hundreds had been evacuated throughout the border within the Czech Republic after heavy rain continued to batter central Europe on Sunday, inflicting flooding in a number of components of the area.
A firefighter tackling flooding in Decrease Austria was additionally killed, Austrian Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler stated on Sunday on social platform X as authorities declared the province which surrounds Vienna a catastrophe space.
Rivers overflowed from Poland to Romania, the place 4 individuals had been discovered lifeless on Saturday, after days of torrential rain in a low-pressure system named Boris.
Some components of the Czech Republic and Poland confronted the worst flooding in nearly three a long time and a bridge collapsed within the historic Polish city of Glucholazy close to the Czech border.
Within the Czech Republic, 1 / 4 of one million properties had been with out energy resulting from excessive winds and rain. Czech police stated they had been on the lookout for three individuals who had been in a automotive that fell into the river Staric close to Lipova Lazne, 235 km east of Prague on Saturday.
In Poland, one individual died in Klodzko county, which Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated was the worst hit space of the nation and the place 1,600 had been evacuated.
“The situation is very dramatic,” Tusk instructed reporters on Sunday after a gathering in Klodzko city, which was partly below water because the native river rose to 665 cm on Sunday morning, properly above the alarm stage of 240.
That surpassed a file seen in heavy flooding in 1997, which partly broken the city and claimed 56 lives in Poland.
Officers in Glucholazy in Poland’s Nysa county ordered evacuations on Sunday morning as native river began to interrupt its banks and the city was reduce off from energy provides. Firefighters and troopers had been working to guard the city’s infrastructure since Saturday however that failed to forestall the bridge collapse.
Native police introduced plans for individuals trapped in flooded homes in Nysa county to be rescued by helicopter.
Residents throughout the Czech border additionally stated the state of affairs was worse than flooding seen earlier than.
“What you see here is worse than in 1997, and I don’t know what will happen because my house is under water, and I don’t know if I will even return to it,” stated Pavel Bily, a resident of Lipova Lazne.
The hearth service within the area stated it had evacuated 1,900 individuals as of Sunday morning, whereas many roads had been impassable.
Within the worst hit areas, greater than 100 mm of rain fell in a single day and round 450 mm since Wednesday night, the Czech climate institute stated.
Extra rain is predicted on Sunday and Monday.
In Budapest, officers raised forecasts for the Danube to rise within the second half of this week, to above 8.5 metres, nearing a file 8.91 metres seen in 2013, as rain continued in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.
“According to forecasts, one of the biggest floods of the past years is approaching Budapest but we are prepared to tackle it,” Budapest’s mayor Gergely Karacsony stated.
In Romania, authorities stated the rain was much less intense than on Saturday, when flooding killed 4 and broken 5,000 properties. Cities and villages in seven counties throughout japanese Romania had been affected, and the nation’s emergency response unit stated it was nonetheless trying to find two individuals lacking.