Around 200,000 people have been evacuated in the Czech Republic due to the rising floodwaters that have ravaged the country since last week, Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said tonight.
Some 15,000 firefighters, police and military have been working around the clock to stave off disaster in the capital Prague and much of Bohemia, and have rescued about 1,000 people, the minister said after a crisis cell met over what has became the worst flooding in the country in nearly a century.
Thousands of Prague residents however have defied an evacuation order after floods submerged parts of the picturesque Czech capital and threatened to swamp residential areas today, claiming nine lives across the country.
The Czech government has already declared a state of emergency yesterday as Prague braced for the worst floods in more than a century.
And with metereologists warning of heavy currents on the Vltava river through the capital this evening, Prague residents were bracing for the worst.
However, several thousand of the city's residents have so far chosen to ignore evacuation orders and risk being cut off for several days without electricity, gas or drinking water, a senior police officer said.
Buses sent to fetch the residents would wait for them "until the last possible moment," the police officer said, while emergency accommodation is being provided for those evacuated.
Parts of the capital's historic Mala Strana district were submerged as dozens of volunteers filled sandbags in the main square of the Old Town to defend other central areas, including the former Jewish district of Josefov.
Also under threat is the 14th-century Charles Bridge, named after the Emperor Charles IV who built it in his favourite Romanesque style.
The stock exchange closed its doors early and most bank headquarters have also been shut down. Several stations have also been closed for fear of flooding, the CTK news agency reported.
A 76-year-old man was found drowned near Strakonice, southern Bohemia, becoming the ninth Czech victim of the floods and storms that have caused chaos and misery in Europe.
Czech President Vaclav Havel is to cut short his holiday in Portugal to return to Prague Wednesday because of the disaster.
The last floods in Prague of a similar magnitude were in 1890, according to environmentalists.
The European Commission, faced with appeals for help from several stricken European countries, said it was considering granting emergency aid for the Czech Republic, which is hoping to join the European Union in 2004.
AFP