Czech officials declared a state of emergency in seven flood-hit regions while rivers continued to rise in neighbouring European countries on Monday, forcing evacuations in some areas.
The state of emergency affects seven of the Czech Republic’s 14 regions, including the hard-hit Usti region in the north and the South Moravian region. The situation in Prague, however, is stable, authorities said.
The flooding, which started last week, was caused by quickly melting snow in the Czech mountains and rain in most of the country. So far, it has not been as serious as flooding four years ago.
In 2002, floods devastated a large part of the Czech Republic, killed at least 16 people and caused nearly â,¬2,5-billion in damage. At the time, the Elbe River reached 12m in some areas.
Rescuers in the western Czech town of Kraslice near the border with Germany were searching for a six-year-old boy believed to have fallen into the swollen Svatava River, the CTK news agency reported.
Czech officials, meanwhile, were deciding whether to evacuate about 1 000 people from Novosedly, 200km south-east of Prague, as the Dyje and Jevisovka rivers continued to swell, authorities said.
Elsewhere, flooding was reported in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia.
The Elbe swelled toward a new peak in Germany on Monday, with officials in the eastern state of Saxony expecting it to reach the 9m mark along the Czech border by nightfall.
More than 1 000 people along the river have had to leave their homes, including several hundred in the historic city of Dresden, where the waters were rising more slowly than previously expected.
Later, floods reached the state of Saxony-Anhalt with the Elbe flooding the inner city of Rosslau, downriver from Saxony, authorities said.
In Austria, a river dam burst on Monday, forcing the partial evacuation of a village north-east of Vienna.
The Hungarian government declared a flood-defence emergency along stretches of the Danube and Ipoly rivers, allowing local authorities to make such decisions as ordering mandatory evacuations.
The affected areas include Budapest, the capital, where water levels were expected to surpass records on Tuesday. More than 450 people have been evacuated from 52 Hungarian localities.
In neighbouring Slovakia, about 1 300 houses in 200 towns and villages across the country were flooded so far, and 474 people were forced to leave their homes, the TASR news agency reported.
The United States ambassador to Prague, William Cabaniss, offered help to Czech authorities after meeting Premier Jiri Paroubek on Monday.
”You have helped us an awful lot as recently as when [Hurricane] Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. We want to be the same close friend,” Cabaniss said.
Paroubek said the amount of aid will be spelled out in about two weeks when the damage can be assessed. He also promised to ask the government for as much as five billion koruna ($211,7-million) in aid to flood victims. — Sapa-AP