VIENNA/PRAGUE: Flooding sparked by Storm Boris in central Europe has burst dams, knocked out power and killed at least 15 people, authorities said on Monday as some communities were cut off four days into the disaster.

High winds and unusually heavy rainfall have hit swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia since Friday. “I have lived here for 16 years, and I have never seen such flooding,” Judith Dickson, who lives in Austria’s Sankt Poelten city, told the national broadcaster ORF. The rains from Boris have flooded streets and submerged entire neighbourhoods in some places, while shutting down public transport and electricity in others.

The Czech Republic and Poland have also reported deaths, evacuations and significant destruction in the worst-hit areas. One person drowned in a swollen river close to Bruntal in the Czech Republic’s northeast, while authorities have recorded seven people missing, according to police.

In the eastern Czech city of Krnov, Eliska Cokreska, a 76-year-old pensioner, described the destruction. “All pavements are destroyed, everything’s toppled here, everything’s broken around the shop... it’s a nightmare,” she said.

Death toll rises to 15 as devastating floods continue to ravage central parts of the continent

‘Dramatic’

In Austria, a 70-year-old and 80-year-old were found dead in their flooded homes in two communities in Lower Austria, the worst-hit province, police said.

One firefighter died over the weekend while responding to the flooding that authorities have described as “dramatic”. Parts of Austria have been inundated since Thursday by five times the average amount of rain the country gets for the entire month of September, according to forecaster Geosphere.

The flooding has broken 12 dams, with muddy rivers raging, while thousands of households were without electricity and water in Lower Austria state, authorities said. Several communities also remain cut off and hundreds of people have been evacuated by helicopter from car roofs and other places. “Because the rain was so extreme we have a hole in our ceiling at home now,” Lea, a 18-year-old said.

Total shutdown

Factories and stores across central Europe shut down production lines and closed their doors on Monday due to flooding. In Ostrava — an industrial city of 290,000 people in northeast Czech Republic — the BorsodChem chemical plant was shut, a spokesperson for the company, partially owned by China’s Wanhua Chemical Group, said.

The OKK Koksovny coking plant — one of the largest producers of foundry coke in Europe — stopped chemicals production but was continuing to keep coking batteries heated to minimum levels, spokesman Jindrich Vanek said.

“There is water that has started rising and there must be a breach of the flood barriers,” he said. “We are without electricity and we are heating our batteries with coking gas, keeping them at technological minimum.” Czech soft drinks maker Kofola CeskoSlovensko said it was pumping water out of its production facilities in Krnov, some 70 km from Ostrava, and would have a better view on the length of the outage early next week.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2024