DRESDEN (Germany), Aug 16: Record floods engulfed the historic eastern German city of Dresden on Friday, swamping its Baroque architecture and driving thousands from their homes.

Some 100,000 people have been evacuated in several towns in eastern Germany, including 30,000 in Dresden alone, while thousands more were on standby to leave as the Elbe rushes downriver.

A tide of debris-laden brown water submerged other towns on the River Elbe, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands while volunteers battled to save the centre of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, 200kms south of Berlin.

Floods have killed at least 89 people in Germany, Russia, Austria and the Czech Republic over the last week, after torrential rains sent a huge surge of water through river systems. At least 10 died in Saxony.

Regions along the flooded rivers face a multi-billion-euro clean-up. In the Czech capital Prague, some residents returned home as waters retreated there, but flooding continued elsewhere in the country and damage estimates were rising rapidly.

Officials said some towns and villages were almost completely devastated. The town of Zalezlice, about 30 km (18 miles) north of Prague, saw 90 of its 120 buildings damaged. Thirty had been levelled.

In Slovakia, the River Danube began to recede from its highest level in 50 years in the capital Bratislava and soldiers began to remove sandbag barriers erected to hold the mighty river back from the city’s medieval centre.

Officials said Bratislava still remained in a state of emergency, but reassured citizens that the risk of the Danube breaking through the hastily built dykes was diminishing.

NATO said its disaster relief arm was coordinating assistance for the Czech Republic and had offered its support to five other central European countries, including Germany.

In Germany, the surging waters continued to rise but were expected to peak overnight. Officials feared more of the architectural gems of Dresden, destroyed by British and U.S. bombers in 1945 and only recently restored, would be submerged.

The Elbe rose from a normal summer level of about two metres to 9.25 metres on Friday, well surpassing the 8.77 metre record of 1845. The last four bridges open in Dresden were closed.

Rossberg estimated the damage would cost far more than 100 million euros (dollars) for Dresden alone, where some 30,000 people were evacuated. It is just one of scores of towns in Germany’s former commu-nist east ravaged by the de-luge.

German media have described it as the flood of the century, although other floods in Germany’s recent history have cost many more lives.

Europe’s biggest insurer Allianz said the losses would be much higher than those caused by the flooding of the River Oder in east Germany five years ago, when soldiers and aid workers spent three weeks shoring up water-logged barriers.

CULTURAL TREASURES AT RISK: Thousands of emergency workers and volunteers battled for the fourth day, piling up sandbags to protect the city centre, which boasts famous architectural landmarks like the Zwinger palace, the Semper opera and the cathedral.