BITTERFELD: German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel yesterday praised the “wonderful solidarity” of tens of thousands struggling against central Europe’s worst river floods in over a decade and promised more help for the victims on her second visit in three days to disaster-hit areas.
Vast stretches along the Elbe river basin have been submerged in northeast Germany and upstream in the Czech Republic, with only trees and red-tiled roofs sticking out of the muddy water in many abandoned villages now accessible only by boat or helicopter.
The picture of devastation was similar along the mighty Danube, which has jumped its banks in Germany’s southern Bavaria state and Austria and sparked large-scale disaster preparations in Hungary, where the water was expected to peak in coming days.
Merkel visited one of Germany’s most flood-threatened cities, Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt state, where two lakes, one higher than the other, loom dangerously close, threatening what locals called a “mini-tsunami” and forcing a mass evacuation.
“The people are scared and it’s understandable,” said Merkel. “We can’t undo the force of nature but I think people can count on everything humanly possible being done,” she said, thanking young people who have organised aid efforts online as well as the 85,000 deployed firefighters, troops and aid workers.
“People here are facing a very difficult situation for the third time,” Merkel said. The day Merkel visited, an exhausted volunteer relief worker in his 60s collapsed and died near Magdeburg in the same eastern region — a further casualty after the regional disaster claimed 12 victims, including eight in the Czech Republic.
Bitterfeld was just one of many riverside cities threatened by the swollen Elbe, which has risen from its usual two to above eight metres (six to above 26 feet) after days of torrential rains, putting heavy strain on saturated dykes.
Tens of thousands have been evacuated — including 30,000 in the nearby city of Halle. Nonetheless, some residents remained defiant.
The mass mobilisation had its lighter moments. In a scene reminiscent of the book and movie The Life of Pi, a cheetah was taken to safety in a rubber dinghy from a nearby flooded zoo to a dry animal enclosure, now dubbed Noah’s Ark. The wild cat had been sedated.
Upstream in the Czech Republic — where the floods have forced some 20,000 evacuations — rescue workers in rubber dinghies were supplying isolated families who lack drinking water, power or gas. In Austria, where two people have died in the floods, the Danube town of Korneuburg just north of Vienna reported an all-time record river level of 8.06 metres. AFP
