Published: 09 Jun 2013 - 03:02 am | Last Updated: 01 Feb 2022 - 10:35 am
BUDAPEST: Flood waters rose in eastern Germany yesterday, forcing the evacuation of homes and a hospital, as Hungary propped up its defences against central Europe’s worst floods in a decade.
Elsewhere, the Austrian interior ministry confirmed that four people had been killed and two were still missing, raising the death toll in Europe from the past week’s floods to at least 18, including 10 in the Czech Republic, which has warned of renewed flood risks.
Legions of soldiers and volunteers worked through the night to reinforce dykes and repair leaks in eastern Germany and in Hungary. Throughout the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, thousands of residents have been evacuated from their homes as water levels on the Elbe river — already at record levels in the past few days — continued to rise by some two centimetres (0.8 inches) every two hours, according to officials.
In Bitterfeld, patients had to be removed from a hospital as a dyke threatened to burst, and in the nearby medieval city of Magdeburg, flooded roads forced the evacuations of several old people’s homes.
In Muehlberg, a town in Branbenburg state that was already evacuated in the last few days, the situation remained “very tense,” said local police spokeswoman Ines Filohn.
Along the Danube, Hungary was next in line to suffer from the rising waters, with the flood expected to peak tomorrow morning in Budapest.
“It is now certain that the water level will not exceed 9.0 metres (30 feet) in Budapest,” Mayor Istvan Tarlos said yesterday.
However, this would still surpass the 2006 historical record of 8.60 metres.
Some 1,500 people had already been evacuated in the northwest of Hungary, where the river has reached record levels in several locations.
