Written by Kuba Steziecki, Janis Laizan and Radovan Stoklasa
WROCLAW, Poland/OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (Reuters) – Volunteers and emergency workers raced to secure river banks in Poland’s historic city of Wroclaw on Tuesday as nearby municipalities advised residents to evacuate their homes and authorities across central Europe counted the cost of flooding that has wreaked havoc and killed at least 22 people.
The flood left a trail of destruction from Romania to Poland. While the waters were receding in many areas, others were anxiously awaiting the rivers to overflow.
Areas along the Czech-Polish border have been among the hardest hit since the weekend, with raging rivers filled with debris devastating historic towns, collapsing bridges and destroying homes.
Flooding has killed seven people in Romania, where waters have receded since the weekend. Seven people have also died in Poland, five in Austria and three in the Czech Republic. Tens of thousands of households in the Czech Republic and Poland remain without electricity or fresh water.
Wroclaw, Poland’s third-largest city, is bracing for rising water levels along the Oder and Bystrica rivers.
Authorities in the Katy Wrocław region, southwest of Wrocław, have recommended that residents of several municipalities in the area evacuate their homes.
In a northern suburb, Michal Nakiewicz, a 44-year-old IT programmer, was among dozens of volunteers helping emergency services pile sandbags on the bank of the Bistrica River.
“I saw parents and kids helping to pour sand. I even saw kids as young as 5 and 6, so it was a huge turnout,” he said. “Every hand helps.”
Wroclaw Zoo called for volunteers to help pack sandbags to protect the animals’ cages, while staff and volunteers began moving some of the 450,000 books from the city’s main church archive to the upper floors of the diocesan archive building.
In Lowen Brzeski, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Wrocław, floodwaters have already arrived and continue to rise.
Residents waded through waist-deep water in some places, while emergency service boats carried others to safety across flooded streets.
Marek Karas, 63, said authorities should have done more to protect the area since the severe flooding in 1997.
“They haven’t done much in this department in 27 years.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the coming days would be crucial.
“These are the most important days ahead of us, you know, the two or three most important days,” Tusk said at a flood crisis team meeting in Wroclaw, adding that the government currently has 2 billion zlotys ($520 million) available for its efforts.
“combat conditions”
During the night, volunteers helped rescue workers lift sandbags to rebuild the broken bridge around Nysa, a city of more than 40,000 people in southwestern Poland.
Some residents returned to check on their homes after they were evacuated on Monday, despite Tusk’s assurances that authorities would act “without mercy” against the looters.
“We are already hearing that thieves have become active,” Sabina Jakubovska, a 45-year-old resident of Nysa, told Reuters.
In the neighboring Czech Republic, state governor Josef Bjelica said 15,000 people had been evacuated in the northeastern region of Moravia-Silesia, one of two badly hit areas. Helicopters were flying aid to areas cut off by floodwaters.
Michal Marianik, director of a nursing home in the regional capital Ostrava, told Reuters that staff moved residents to a higher floor for two nights and cared for them without electricity.
“In those combat conditions we were able to prepare temporary menus and so on,” he said.
Credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS estimates that losses from flooding in central Europe could exceed €1 billion ($1.1 billion).
The damage in his region alone will amount to tens of billions of crowns (more than $1 billion), Bjelica said. The Czech Insurance Association said a preliminary estimate of the cost of flood damage to insured property was 17 billion crowns ($753 million).
In Hungary, in the towns of Visegrád and Szentendre, north of Budapest, authorities have deployed mobile dams to limit flooding from the Danube River.
Budapest is bracing for record-high water levels, and has closed Margaret Island, a recreational area with hotels and restaurants.
In Slovakia, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said the Danube River peaked at around 10 metres overnight and would now slowly fall. He said damage from flooding across the country was estimated at around 20 million euros.
(1 dollar = 3.8432 zloty)