AT LEAST six people have been killed and thousands forced from their homes in storms that are lashing central Europe, causing flash floods and cutting power supplies across the region.
In Hungary, one man was killed when a wall collapsed on his house in the northeastern city of Miskolc, where the mayor imposed restrictions on drinking water due to fears of contamination, and local residents built makeshift barriers of logs, rocks and debris.
“So far, 2,093 people have been forced to leave their houses, most of them in the northeast of the country,” said Gyorgy Szentes, a spokesman for Hungary’s National Disaster Authority.
Other officials in northeastern Hungary described the situation as “catastrophic”, and dozens of patients had to be moved to higher floors in the town of Szikszo after floodwaters surrounded the building.
“It’s hard to predict when the situation will normalise because of the weather. We have not seen such floods in the valleys of the Sajo and Hernad since 1974,” said Csaba Csont, a spokesman for northern Hungary’s water management agency.
Hungary’s emergency services said they had received thousands of calls about flooding and uprooted trees since the storms took hold on Saturday, sending winds of up to 110km/h whipping across the country. Some national motorways were partly flooded, and stretches of the rail network were blocked by fallen trees.
In the Czech Republic, a 69-year-old woman from the north-eastern town of Trinec drowned when she was caught in a brook that burst its banks. Some 10,000 Czechs were left without heat and light after winds and falling trees brought down power lines, and 90 patients were evacuated from a hospital in the town of Bohumin as water levels rose to their highest levels in decades.
“Many places are facing a critical situation,” said Czech regional governor Jaroslav Palas. “I have agreed with Martin Bartak that he will send the army to the region if necessary.”
In southern Poland, a woman in her 60s and a 45-year-old man died in separate incidents after being washed away by flood waters, and officials expected to evacuate up to 2,000 people from their homes as floods submerged fields, roads and railway lines.
Two people died in flooding in Serbia, and in Slovakia troops were deployed to help the emergency services.