Monday, September 16, 2024, 7:22 PM
The stormy weather that hit central and eastern Europe over the weekend, causing flooding and evacuations in several countries, has already claimed the lives of at least fourteen people in Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania. However, the number of victims of Boris could increase as emergency and rescue efforts for the missing progress.
Early warnings of inclement weather have not prevented tragedies, such as those recorded in Romania, where six people have already died, making it the worst-affected country. The rains hit Galati County hard, where more than 5,000 homes are affected. The authorities have been forced to set up two tent camps with a total capacity to accommodate 800 of the displaced.
In Austria, at least two people have died in the state of Lower Austria, which the government has declared a disaster zone due to the devastation. “The situation remains dramatic,” warned the state governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, yesterday. In this area, more than 200 roads have had to be closed, more than 1,800 buildings have been evacuated and thousands of students have been forced to stay at home. Around 3,500 homes are currently without electricity due to damage to energy installations caused by up to 370 millimetres of rain that have fallen in recent days.
«An apocalypse»
In the Czech Republic, the situation is no more encouraging, and even the mayor of one of the worst-affected towns has described what has happened as “an apocalypse.” In the Central European country, one person was confirmed dead yesterday after drowning in a river, while seven others are missing. It is estimated that three of the latter were trapped in a car that fell into a raging river near the town of Jesenik, near the border with Poland. The rest of the missing people could have been swept away by masses of water from floods that Prime Minister Petr Fiala considers to be unique in a century.
In neighbouring Poland, the authorities had called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet yesterday, after which a state of natural disaster was declared in the most affected areas. The incessant rainfall has caused widespread flooding and so far five people have died in the town of Nysa, in the south of the country, although it is feared that the death toll could rise soon.
Other states in the region, such as Hungary, have also reported incidents due to the heavy rains, although no fatalities have been confirmed so far. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced yesterday that he was suspending his “international obligations” to focus his efforts on meeting the needs of his citizens in the face of “extreme weather conditions.” Germany is also preparing for an imminent rise in rivers caused by flooding in border regions.
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