DEATHS IN FOUR COUNTRIES
Historic Wroclaw, with 600,000 residents, was preparing for peaking water along the Oder river. Its zoo called for volunteers to help pack sandbags to protect grounds, although animals were kept safely from flood zones.
Polish authorities have filled 75 per cent of a giant reservoir near the Czech border, aimed at cutting water levels and preventing flooding waves on the Odra and Nysa from overlapping, which is what happened in massive flooding in 1997 that hit Wroclaw.
Flooding has killed seven people in Romania, where waters have receded since the weekend, plus four in Poland, four in Austria and three in the Czech Republic.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said more than 13,000 people had been evacuated.
Tens of thousands of Czech and Polish households were still without power.
In the northeastern Czech city of Ostrava, a broken barrier on the Oder at its confluence with the Opava river caused flooding on Monday of the city’s industrial area, including the BorsodChem chemical plant and coking plant OKK Koksovny.
In Hungary, at the historic towns of Visegrad and Szentendre, north of Budapest, authorities have put mobile dams in place preparing for the Danube floods.
Budapest is preparing for waters peaking near record levels, and has closed Margaret island, a recreational area with hotels and restaurants, where people have piled tens of thousands of sandbags to protect it.
