Romania evacuated hundreds of people overnight today as the swollen Danube river poured over dam walls and threatened more villages in the flood-ravaged Balkans.
In the southwestern Romanian village of Bechetul de Vale, authorities started evacuating more than 1,000 residents as rescue workers raced to stop flooding, the state news agency reported.
"We are trying to hold the waters with sandbags, but I don't know for how long we can control the situation," the villlage's mayor said. "If the people don't want to be evacuated, we will force them," he said.
Roughly 7,000 Romanians have been forced to leave their homes in recent days after the Danube hit its highest level in a century throughout the Balkans.
Melting snow and heavy rains have fed the river, which has flooded nearly 200,000 hectares of fertile farmland across Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Villagers throughout the region, which is still recovering from massive floods last year, have fled to higher-lying areas, moved in with relatives or spent nights in army tents.
Danube water flow decreased to 15,200 cubic metres per second today near the Romanian-Serbian border, from a 111-year record of 15,800 on Saturday, the Environment Ministry said.
But government officials said the danger of new flooding persisted as heavy waters weighed on weakened defences.
"Given the situation, I'm afraid we will have to force people to leave their homes," Romanian Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said
during a visit to the village of Bistret, where more than 1,000 were evacuated after a dike was breached earlier this week.
"They must understand they could die," Mr Tariceanu said.