At least 19 people are reported to have died in flooding caused by Storm Boris in Central and Eastern Europe, with many countries braced for more torrential rain.
Rivers were still spilling their banks in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, while the River Danube was rising in Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. The flooding is the worst the region has seen in at least two decades, authorities report.
Border areas between the Czech Republic and Poland were especially hit hard over the weekend, with surging water levels leading to collapsed bridges and damaged cars and houses.
Seven people are now reported to have died in Romania, where waters have receded since the weekend. Four have been declared dead in Poland, another five in Austria, and three in the Czech Republic. Dozens more are understood to be missing.
The Czech police said one woman drowned in the northeast of the country near the border with Poland. Seven other people were missing on Monday, up from four a day earlier.
Emergency services in Austria discovered an 81-year-old woman dead in her flooded house on Tuesday, adding to the country’s toll. Two men aged 70 and 80 were found drowned in their homes in the Lower Austria region surrounding Vienna, while a firefighter died on Sunday. The cause of death of the other victim remains unclear.
In Poland, the city of Wroclaw, which boasts 600,000 residents, was preparing on Tuesday for the Oder river to peak. The waters have been forecast to hit their highest on Wednesday.
Meeting in the city with Prime Minister Donald Tusk, national fire chief Mariusz Feltynowski reported on Tuesday on overnight efforts to seal the embankment in the nearby town of Nysa, where military helicopters had joined the operation to drop sandbags.
The previous day, the town’s hospital was evacuated, with patients including pregnant women and elderly people taken away in rafts.
Many Polish cities, including Warsaw, have called for food donations for flood survivors.
Reporting from the town of Klodzko in Poland, Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig said the situation in the town was devastating.
