HUNGARY: Emergency services and volunteers piled tonnes of sandbags along the Danube in Hungary yesterday as the swollen river threatened the capital, Budapest.
The Prime Minister, Mr Peter Medgyessy, remained confident the city would be spared the muddy chaos that flooding has caused in eastern Germany and the Czech Republic.
Nervous residents bolstered defences against surging river levels in the picturesque tourist town of Szentendre as the Danube, one of Europe's main waterways, rose to its highest level in more than a century.
The Danube, which cuts through the capital, was expected to peak at about 8.55 metres later yesterday. By late afternoon, it stood at 8.45 metres in Budapest, matching the 1965 level, the highest recorded in the past century.
Flooding across central Europe has killed nearly 100 people and caused billions of euros of damage to cities from the Czech capital Prague to the German city of Dresden.
After a cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Medgyessy said his government had raised the amount of money available for flood defences to 3.2 billion forints (€12.8 million). He praised the work of the emergency services and volunteers which had so far saved villages and towns along the Danube from major damage.
The government has postponed the traditional fireworks display planned for tomorrow, Hungary's national day, which marks the birth of the nation over 1,000 years ago. A glitzy government reception at Hungary's parliament, under threat from the Danube, has also been cancelled.
While the authorities were confident that flood defences would prevent major damage, many local residents were alarmed at just how high the river had risen.
"Of course we're worried because if the dykes burst, these sandbags will be worse than useless," said one man who has lived in Szentendre, north of Budapest, since 1954 and who built his house in the river flood plain - without insurance.
In the north-west village of Nagybajcs, the Danube peaked at 8.8 metres on Saturday before waters began receding.
More than 20,000 people, firemen, soldiers and volunteers, worked to strengthen flood defences along the upper stretch of the Danube and in the capital, piling up over a million sandbags.
In the historic town of Visegrad, locals toiled to protect some 200 houses and the remains of the Renaissance palace of 15th century King Corvinus Matyas.
Two thousand homes in the flood plains have been evacuated.
Budapest's mayor Mr Gabor Demszky said the city's defences were built to withstand water up to 10 metres. "Budapest will not be in the situation of Passau, Prague or Dresden . . . Fortunately our forefathers were wise enough to plan and build these banks to a very high standard in the second half of the 19th century." - (Reuters)
AFP adds: Czech authorities yesterday ordered new evacuations in Prague, fearing further buildings in the historic flood-ravaged city could collapse.
The evacuations were ordered in the Karlin neighbourhood, an area of the city most affected by the worst floods in living memory and where three buildings had already collapsed.
Residents were also told to get out of part of the northern Prague suburb of Holesovice.
They are among around 220,000 Czechs forced out of their homes by the worst floods in more than 100 years.