PRAGUE (AP) — Huge floods In Central Europe, five more people were killed in Poland and one in the Czech Republic, officials said Monday.
The number of victims of floods in southwestern Poland has risen from one to five after the body of a surgeon returning from hospital work was found in the town of Nysa, firefighters said.
Earlier, the bodies of two women and two men were found separately in the towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój and in two villages.
Since then, water levels in those areas have dropped, but experts warn of a risk of flooding in Opole, a city of about 130,000, where the Oder River has reached high water levels. Concerns have also been raised in the city of Wroclaw, home to about 640,000.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk has convened an emergency government meeting to discuss special measures to accelerate financial and other support for flood victims.
Police in the Czech Republic said a woman drowned in the northeast, which has been battling record rains since Thursday. Seven people were still missing on Monday, up from four a day earlier.
The floods have already killed six people in Romania and one in Austria.
Most parts of the Czech Republic have been hit by flooding, but the situation was worst in two northeastern regions where authorities declared a state of emergency, including the Jeseniky Mountains, near the Polish border.
A number of towns and villages in the region were flooded on Sunday, with thousands evacuated. Military helicopters joined rescuers on boats to bring people to safety.
On Monday, the waters retreated from the mountainous areas, leaving only destroyed houses, bridges and damaged roads.
Conditions were expected to improve in most parts of the country on Monday.
Floods moving towards southeastern Czech Republic inundated the town of Litovel.
The Oder River, which flows into Poland, caused flooding in parts of the Czech city of Ostrava on Monday, forcing further evacuations.
Authorities in Ostrava, the country’s third-largest city, warned against traveling there. Many schools were closed and most people were without hot water and heating. Officials said some 120,000 households nationwide were without power as of Monday morning.
After floods hit Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, It could hit Slovakia and Hungary next as a low pressure area from northern Italy has been dumping record rains on the region since Thursday.
In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest warned residents that the capital would face its worst flooding in a decade later this week, with water from the Danube River expected to overflow the city’s lower embankments on Tuesday morning.
Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote on Facebook that the city would deploy 1 million sandbags to protect various parts of the city and asked residents to be extra careful near the river.
___
Scislowska reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to the report.
