German, Czech cities brace for flood surge
AFP Updated June 5, 2013, 11:06 pm
DRESDEN, Germany (AFP) - German, Czech and Austrian river cities braced for rising flood waters Wednesday, evacuating thousands and boosting defences along the swollen Elbe and Danube, after inundations from heavy rains left at least 12 people dead.
The widespread floods, which have turned villages into islands in seas of muddy water, were the worst since 2002 when scores of people were killed and billions of euros (dollars) worth of infrastructure was damaged.
In Germany, the Elbe rose to eight metres (26 feet), six metres higher than usual, as 40,000 firefighters and 5,000 troops were mobilised and thousands of people told to leave their homes ahead of a flood peak expected Thursday.
In the Czech Republic, where eight people have already perished, some villages in the north were under water and isolated, leaving households without power, gas, phones lines and basic supplies.
"People who stayed in their homes are running out of drinking water," Czech firefighter Jiris Kris said on Germany's N24 television, adding that rescue workers in the flood zone were exhausted.
"We haven't slept in 40 hours," he said. "Only yesterday were we able to rest for three hours, and today we kept going."
The floods plaguing have also claimed two lives in Austria and one in Switzerland.
Slovakia reported its first drowned victim Wednesday. A body was found in the Danube river close to the Gabcikovo dam in southern Slovakia, emergency services spokesman Jan Culka told TASR newswire.
In Germany, defences were strengthened around the ancient city centre of Dresden, a world heritage site, as well as Magdeburg and Halle, where hundreds of homes in outlying districts were already under water.
"We think we're well-prepared," said Dresden city spokesman Kai Schulz.
"The flood preparations since the 'century floods' of 2002 are working. The historic old city has been secured with new flood barriers, which can hold back floods up to 9.40 metres.
"Still, areas to the east of the city are under water. In the past 48 hours alone, more than 1,000 people were evacuated, and there'll be more."
Troops were frantically filling sandbags to reinforce a saturated dyke as the Elbe tributary the Saale rose above eight metres -- the highest level in 400 years -- threatening the city of Halle.
In southern Germany, where the Danube has burst its banks, the Bavarian rural district of Deggendorf was cut off from the outside world, and 6,000 people had been evacuated.
"We have a 90-year-old woman who can't really walk anymore after she had an operation recently. But she has been rescued by fire fighters," said an emergency official on private television.
In Passau, hit by "millennium floods" of 12.9 metres this week, waters were receding and hundreds of troops were helping clear tonnes of m&d and debris from offices and homes.
In the Czech Republic, police said they had so far caught five people looting in evacuated flood areas.
Prague interim mayor Tomas Hudecek has bemoaned "an excessive surge in flood tourists" amid reports some had attempted to dismantle anti-flood defences to take home as souvenirs.
Downstream, the Elbe has spilled into meadows between Melnik, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Prague, and Usti nad Labem, an industrial city 30 kilometres from the German border, where some 3,700 have had to leave their homes.
The Elbe was also threatening several chemical plants along its banks, and was carrying two empty 12-tonne gas containers from the city of Decin towards Germany.
In Slovakia's capital Bratislava, sightseers have flocked to the city centre to watch the rising waters of the Danube.
Flood defences in the city were protecting the old town, but one district, Devin, has been cut off as the water flooded an access road.
In Austria, the Danube peaked mid-morning in Vienna at almost eight metres, leaving port areas and riverside restaurants flooded, but the rest of the city was expected to be spared.
In the town of Grein, in Upper Austria, flood waters peaked overnight and had begun subsiding. "We were 14 centimetres from a disaster," the town's mayor told Austria's Oe1 public radio.
In Austria, heavily pregnant Franziska Doerfel, 20, was rescued from the rising waters just as she was about to give birth, and little Lina Sophie -- dubbed the "Hochwasser-Baby" ("flood baby") -- had to be delivered in an ambulance, the Heute daily reported.
