dpa
Warsaw/Prague
The death toll from severe flooding in central and eastern Europe climbed to 16 on Monday, with more heavy rains on the way.
More than a dozen casualties have now been confirmed across Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania in the floods that began inundating the region over the weekend, with the toll expected to continue rising.
In large parts of the extensive disaster zone, kilometres of land remain submerged, with roads and field flooded, basements and houses filling with water and dams and dykes overwhelmed.
In Poland, authorities said on Monday afternoon that three men and one woman have died in separate incidents across the affected regions, bringing the total death toll in the country to five.
The latest developments saw the mayor of the small south-western town of Paczków order a compulsory evacuation after a crack appeared in the wall of a nearby reservoir.
Mayor Artur Rolka warned that “no one can guarantee that the damage will not worsen” in an appeal on social media and said on Polish television that he decided on a compulsory evacuation after residents failed to heed his calls for them to leave their houses voluntarily.An immediate evacuation was also ordered in Nysa, another town in the Opole region with more than 40,000 inhabitants which had seen dramatic scenes on Sunday as 33 patients were rescued from the local district hospital in rubber dinghies.
The situation in Nysa had initially seemed under control on Monday, but sirens later wailed through the town and television footage showed long queues of cars on the city’s bridges after the mayor warned that a dyke could breach and flood the city.
After an emergency Cabinet meeting in the western city of Wroclaw on Monday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced 1bn zloty ($260mn) in aid for victims of the flooding.
Tusk said he would speak to his counterparts in Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia about jointly seeking European Union funding to help with reconstruction efforts.
The latest victims in Austria included two elderly men who died in their homes in the flood-hit state of Lower Austria, which has been declared a disaster zone by the national government. The flood situation in the eastern region - which surrounds the capital Vienna and borders the Czech Republic - is still serious despite a brief let-up in rain overnight, Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner said on Monday.
The Czech Republic confirmed on Monday its first death from the flooding, while reporting up to seven people missing. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has described the situation as a once-in-a-century flood.
Other countries have also been affected by the historic storm front, with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán announcing on the social media platform X that he has postponed all “international obligations” due to “extreme weather conditions and the ongoing floods in Hungary.”
