Czechs, Germans pull out as flood waters rise

CZECH REPUBLIC / GERMANY: Emergency workers erected flood barriers in Prague yesterday and thousands of Czechs and Germans were evacuated from their homes as rivers rose to dangerous levels across central Europe.

Melting snow and heavy rainfall have combined to create the most serious threat of major flooding in the region since 2002, when more than 100 people died and towns and cities in several countries suffered damage costing billions of euro.

After the historic centre of Prague was inundated, officials ordered the construction of flood barriers along the Vltava river, and they were raised this week as meteorologists warned of persistent heavy rainfall and rising water levels.

Some 1,500 people living in the outskirts of Prague have been put on standby for evacuation, after about 10,000 Czechs around the town of Znojmo were ordered to leave their homes in the low-lying south Moravia region, close to the Austrian border.

Stanislav Juranek, the governor of the province, declared a state of emergency as the Dyje river threatened to burst its banks. Thousands more people around the town of Hodonin on the Morava river were also braced for the order to abandon their houses.

"The situation looks horrible," said Mr Juranek. "It is like a combination of the floods of 1997 and 2002. The water level is rising and the prognoses are very unfavourable." The Czech cabinet met in emergency session and prime minister Jiri Paroubek returned home early from Egypt to assess the situation.

Meanwhile at Prague zoo, where 100 animals died in the 2002 flood, keepers also prepared to evacuate their charges.

In Germany, a state of alert was announced in the eastern region of Saxony after the Elbe river reached a critical level, and about 1,000 people were moved from their homes in the town of Bad Schandau.

A spokeswoman for the local government in the state's Saxon Switzerland region said authorities were planning to evacuate hundreds of residents.

In Dresden, which was severely damaged by the 2002 floods, the Elbe was recorded at 6.45m (21 feet), more than three times its normal level; it was even higher just over the Czech border, where the river is expected to reach 8.5m (28 feet) this evening.

Flood alerts were also in effect along stretches of the Danube river in Germany, Slovakia and in Hungary, where the high water level closed a section of the embankment in central Budapest.

Officials in southern Poland have also declared a flood alert amid fears that the Oder river could burst its banks.