More than 80,000 emergency personnel including firefighters and soldiers were on duty Saturday, working to contain the most dramatic floods in Germany in a decade. Thousands of residents were still unable to return to their homes, and bridges and streets were impassable in many regions of eastern and southern Germany.
Twenty people reportedly have already died in the floods across central Europe after several days of heavy rains. Thousands have been put up in emergency shelters waiting for the waters to recede so they can get back to their homes.
German news agency dpa said people in Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt were anxiously waiting downstream as the crest of the Elbe river approached Saturday. Authorities evacuated a nursing home and turned off electricity in several parts of the city. Where the Saale river meets the Elbe, about 3,000 people had to leave their homes.
“The coming days will be extreme and difficult,” Magdeburg’s mayor, Lutz Truemper, told news agency dpa.
High water levels were also reported in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while thousands of people in Austria were busy shoveling away mud left by the receding floodwaters of the Danube.
In Hungary, around 2,000 residents of the town of Gyorujfalu northwest of the capital of Budapest were evacuated because authorities were afraid the levees wouldn’t withstand the pressure of the Danube’s waters. Another 980 residents had to leave their homes along the river out of precaution.
Hundreds of volunteers and military personnel were helping shore up the defenses along the Danube in Szentendre, a town 14 miles north of Budapest, while military reservists from other Hungarian counties filled sandbags and packed them on top of walls along the river, which is expected to peak here on today at about 16 inches above its current record of 25 fee.
The rising waters of the Danube, Europe’s biggest river, are expected to reach Budapest on Monday. The water levels were already at 28.2 feet on Saturday and expected to rise to 29.4 feet at the peak of the flood — inching close to the top of the river’s flood fences, which are 30.5 feet tall.
In Slovakia, the Danube was still on the rise in the towns of Sturovo and Komarno near the Hungarian border. The situation in Komarno was especially critical as several protective barriers started leaking and volunteers had arrived to reinforce them with sandbags.
In the Czech Republic, the waters were dropping further and cleanup work was under way. However, anti-flood measures were to remain in place as heavy rains and thunderstorms were forecast for the weekend.
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