More than 20,000 people are working to reinforce Hungary's dykes in anticipation of record flood levels expected to hit the capital Budapest this afternoon, the disaster management service said.
Some 1,700 people have been evacuated throughout the country and 28 villages north of Budapest risk being engulfed by rising rivers, according to the service.
Most of the service's efforts are concentrated on villages north of Budapest, alongside the Danube river which broke its banks upstream in Germany, Austria and Slovakia last week, causing widespread damages.
Margaret Island, a nature park and home to two luxury hotels in the Danube at the heart of Budapest, has been closed to traffic and is already partly underwater. Some 260 soldiers are reinforcing dams to protect the hotels.
The level of the Danube has already dropped in north-western Hungary, upstream from Budapest, but experts are expecting record flood levels this evening in the Hungarian capital. They are however confident that the dams will hold.
AFP