SLOBOZIA: Four people have died in Romania in floods triggered by Storm Boris, which has brought torrential rains and widespread disruption to central and eastern Europe, rescue services said on Saturday.

Since Thursday, swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have been hit by high winds and unusually fierce rains. “We are again facing the effects of climate change, which are increasingly present on the European continent, with dramatic consequences,” said Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

“We must continue to strengthen our capacity to anticipate extreme weather events.” In Romania, four bodies were discovered in the worst affected region, Galati in the southeast, where 5,000 homes were damaged.

Storm Boris wreaks havoc across eastern and central Europe

Hundreds of people have been rescued across 19 parts of the country, rescue services said, releasing a video of flooded homes in a village by the Danube river. “This is a catastrophe of epic proportions,” said Emil Dragomir, mayor of Slobozia Conachi village in Galati, where he said 700 homes had been flooded.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is visiting the area, while President Iohannis sent his “condolences to grieving families”. Around 100,000 firefighters have been mobilised in the Czech Republic, where nearly 2,900 incidents were recorded on Friday, most of them due to fallen trees and floods.

Almost 50,000 homes were without electricity on Saturday, Czech power company CEZ said, and a hospital in the southeastern city of Brno was evacuated on Saturday morning. “The ground is now saturated so all the rainwater is going to stay on the surface,” Environment Minister Petr Hladik said on X, formerly Twitter. Residents are being offered free bags of sand to shore up their homes. Neighbouring Slovakia has declared a state of emergency in the capital, Bratislava. Meanwhile in Poland, the government warned the situation would be the most difficult in the southwest going into Saturday afternoon and evening.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2024