UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – Heavy rains are hitting Central and Eastern Europe. Four people have already died on Saturday in Romania, another in Poland and four are missing in the Czech Republic. A firefighter died in Austria.
Torrential rains, spectacular and deadly floods, evacuations by the thousands: Storm Boris is sowing devastation in Central and Eastern Europe, and its toll has risen to at least six dead and several missing. This storm has caused damage and catastrophic flooding in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Romania.
After four people died in Romania on Saturday, the death toll rose on Sunday, with one person drowning in Poland and a firefighter dead in Austria. In addition, four people are missing in the Czech Republic.
The impressive images of these floods taken by photographers show entire neighborhoods flooded, streets submerged in water, residents with water up to their armpits in Romania, sand dikes to limit the rising waters, people taking refuge in a school in Poland.
The storm caused massive power outages, disruptions to the transport network and mass evacuations of residents across these countries.
In Romania, rescue services announced on Saturday that they had found the bodies of four people during a search operation in the worst-hit region of Galati (southeast), where thousands of homes have been affected. The Romanian Interior Ministry reported “more than 5,000 households and more than 15,000 people affected in Galati and Vaslui counties”.
A firefighter died while working during floods in northeastern Austria, regional authorities said on Sunday.
In the Polish town of Glucholazy, on the Polish-Czech border, the flooded Biala Glucholaska River overflowed its dikes, flooding the town centre and neighbouring neighbourhoods.
«We are sinking”
“We are sinking”the mayor of Glucholazy told the press, calling on residents to leave areas threatened by the floods.
Thousands of people have been evacuated and evacuations continue on both sides of the border where hundreds of thousands of homes remained without power Sunday morning.
Rail traffic between Poland and the Czech Republic has been cut off, PAP reported.
“We have the first confirmed drowning death in the Klodzko region”said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Sunday morning, who has been traveling through the southwest of the country, which has been hardest hit by the floods, since Saturday.
In the Czech Republic, police have reported four people missing: three people in a car that fell into a river in the northeastern town of Lipova-Lazne and a man who disappeared after being swept away by a flooded river.
The situation is particularly serious in the north-east of the country, where a large part of the town of Opava has been evacuated due to the overflowing of the Opava River.
Also readStorm Boris in Central Europe: Floods kill four in Romania
In Poland, the town of Ladek Zdroj remained without road access and, in the Klodzko region, 1,600 people had to be evacuated.
“We think there will be more evacuations”Mr. Tusk said, once again appealing to the population of “do not refuse evacuation”.
The Polish Prime Minister has announced the deployment of Starlink satellite internet systems to provide communication to places that have been cut off from it.
Poland has sent the army to support the firefighters and police on the ground, also equipped with heavy equipment, Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters.
Czech electricity suppliers reported on Sunday morning that 260,000 homes were without electricity due to the floods.
In Austria, rail traffic was interrupted in part of the country overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
Residents trapped
A Vienna metro line has been partially closed as the network is threatened by the Wien River and the Danube Canal running through the Austrian capital. Sand dams have been erected inside the tunnels.
The region of the country hardest hit by the storm, Lower Austria (northeast) has been classified as a natural disaster zone. With 1.72 million inhabitants, it is the most populous in the country after Vienna.
“Hydrologists predict extremely heavy rains in the coming hours, up to 60 millimeters”warned his vice-governor Stephan Pernkopf.
Nearly 5,000 operations took place overnight in Lower Austria, where residents are currently trapped in their homes.
Flooding from heavy rains is expected to increase in central and western Europe in a world facing an average of 1.5°C of warming, IPCC climate experts said in a 2022 report. The world is already estimated to be at least 1.2°C warmer than in the pre-industrial era (1850-1900).
