PARIS: Paris was on alert on Saturday as the swollen Seine crept higher, with forecasters expecting the flooding to peak before the weekend is out.

The river reached 5.7 metres at 9:00am (0800 GMT) on Saturday, more than four metres above its normal height, causing headaches for commuters as well as people living near its overflowing banks.

Tourists suffered too with the capital’s famous Bateaux Mouches rivercraft out of service, and emergency services alone authorised to navigate the Seine.

Forecasters believe it will continue to rise, peaking at 5.9 metres on Sunday night or Monday, but not quite reaching the 2016 high of 6.1 metres, when the Louvre museum was forced to close its doors for four days.

But the world’s most visited museum was on high alert on Saturday, along with the Musee d’Orsay and Orangerie galleries, with the lower level of the Louvre’s Islamic arts wing closed to visitors.

Leaks had started to appear in some basements on Friday, while some residents on the city’s outskirts were forced to travel by boat through waterlogged streets.

A health centre in Paris’s north-western suburbs, where 86 patients were receiving care, was also evacuated on Friday.

In total, more than 650 people have been evacuated from their homes in the Paris region, according to police, while around 1,400 were without electricity.

The Vigicrues flooding agency scaled back its peak predictions for the river in the capital, saying it will top out at 5.9 to 6 metres on Sunday evening at the earliest, compared with 6.2 metres previously.

“Due to the spread of flooding to different tributaries, the level of the Seine in Paris will continue rising again on the weekend,” said Vigicrues, adding that highest level would last for about 10 hours before slowly going down.

The extent of the rising water levels was evident from the Seine lapping half way up the Zouave statue of a Crimean soldier on the Pont de l’Alma bridge, which locals and tourists alike snapped with cameras and phones as they went past.

It’s enough to worry Joao de Macedo, janitor at a residential building in Paris’s upscale 16th Arrondissement.

“There are six studios in the basement, and we’ve had to set up blocks outside to keep the windows from breaking and covering everything in water,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2018