dpa
Warsaw
Thousands of residents in the south-western Polish town of Nysa rallied on Tuesday to successfully prevent the breaching of a crucial dyke, as severe flooding across Central and Eastern Europe continues to keep emergency forces on edge and the death toll nears 20.
“Nysa has been saved from the worst,” the head of the regional administration, Monika Jurek, was quoted as saying by Poland’s PAP news agency.
Located about 90 kilometres south of Wroclaw, Nysa was at risk as water levels in the Nysa Klodzka river continued to rise amid the persistent rainfall that battered the region since the weekend.
The water level has since started to recede, Jurek said. Throughout the night, local residents joined forces with the army and fire brigade to fortify the weakened dyke with sandbags.
“There were about 2,000 people on the dyke: women, men, children and senior citizens,” Mayor Kordian Kolbiarz told radio station Rmf.fm.
People had formed a human chain to transport the sandbags, he said. In the end, these efforts helped to secure the dam. Poland is one of several Central and Eastern European countries grappling with historic flooding since last weekend. At least 19 deaths have now been confirmed across Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania due to the floods triggered by sometimes unprecedented levels of rainfall.
Across the border, the situation also remained tense in the flood-stricken areas of the Czech Republic, with numerous gauging stations still at the highest flood alert level, posing a danger to people and property.
In the northern Bohemian city of Ústí nad Labem, near the border with Germany, the Elbe river’s crest is not expected until Tuesday evening.
The government in Prague gave the green light on Monday evening for the deployment of up to 2,000 soldiers in the disaster areas in the east of the country. In neighbouring Slovakia, people are anxiously watching the Danube. In Austria, emergency services discovered an 81-year-old woman dead in her flooded house on Tuesday, raising the total death toll in the rain-battered country to five.
