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Prague Flooding Forces Evacuation

August 14, 2002

PRAGUE, Czech Republic  — Police evacuated residents of Prague's Old Town on Wednesday, but let tourists back into the historic square as the flood threat appeared to ease in the waterlogged Czech Republic and across most of Europe.

Rays of sunshine broke through as emergency workers continued stacking sandbags to keep the engorged Vltava River away from the city center, hit by its worst flooding since 1890. Across Europe, at least 94 people have died in devastating flooding, including nine Czechs.

Although the Vltava was rising at a slower rate and the rain stopped, heavy winds began gusting over the Czech capital Wednesday, raising fears of a storm surge that could push flood waters through the barricades.

Officials in neighboring Slovakia declared a state of emergency Wednesday in the capital, Bratislava, where the Danube River was rising dangerously, the Czech news agency CTK reported. There were widespread power outages and some people used boats to get to work.

Five more deaths were reported Wednesday in Germany, pushing the toll there to seven. They included drowning deaths in the Dresden area and a victim who died of injuries suffered in a fall during a botched helicopter rescue attempt.

Raging waters cut off some towns in the German state of Saxony and left parts of Dresden flooded, including the famed Semper-Oper opera house and the Zwinger palace, home to a renowned collection of Renaissance paintings. Volunteers filled sandbags in the historic city center to try to keep the Elbe River from causing further damage.

Hundreds of thousands of Czechs have fled the onslaught of the Vltava and dozens of other rivers, searching for higher ground amid torrential rains that have soaked the continent for a week and a half. About 70,000 inhabitants of the capital's 1 million people left their homes, city officials said.

"We're fighting a phenomenon," Prague Mayor Igor Nemec said. "Whether the water will spill over the barriers or not remains to be seen."

Sirens wailed through deserted streets as the evacuation progressed, spurred on by water lapping up to within 1 1/2 feet of the edge of the barriers. Helicopters surveyed the area overhead.

Prague municipal workers arrived at City Hall before dawn to save documents in offices in the river's path. Residents in the former Jewish quarter — the site of a centuries-old cemetery and several synagogues — were also ordered out.

"The situation is not optimistic, but I think we can still cope with it," Jaroslav Tvrdik, the Czech defense minister, told The Associated Press as he watched the evacuation.

Much of the capital remained without electricity, and at least three streets in the city's center were accessible only by boat.

In Austria, where at least seven people have died, firefighters and Red Cross volunteers using sandbags worked into the night to hold back parts of the swollen Danube. The waters flooded Vienna's port and some low-lying streets.

The Defense Ministry said 8,000 soldiers battled floods in Upper Austria and along the Danube after flooding that affected an estimated 60,000 Austrians.

In Salzburg province, more than 1,000 buildings were under water, and in the badly flooded Danube town of Krems, residents were urged to abandon lower floors Tuesday night.

"We're sitting here in a bathtub without a plug," said Alfred Riedl, the mayor of Grafenwoerth in Lower Austria, where the Danube caused widespread flooding and evacuations.

The Danube began receding in some stricken villages and was rising at a slower rate in others, authorities said Wednesday. Austria's national weather service, meanwhile, said the torrential rains that unleashed the catastrophic flooding were over.

Most of Europe's flooding casualties were in Russia, where the death toll rose by one to 59 on Wednesday — mostly Russian tourists vacationing on the Black Sea who were swept away by swiftly moving water late last week.

The toll could rise higher there: Thirty cars and buses remain on the sea floor, and authorities have not been able to search them yet. New storm warnings were issued for the area.

In Romania, flooding and strong winds killed at least seven people in recent days, including a 24-year-old woman and her 17-month-old baby killed by a tornado in the eastern part of the country.

After water engulfed Prague's historic Kampa island — flooding ornate palaces and villas dating to the Hapsburg Empire — volunteers redoubled their efforts to save the heart of the city from its normally sleepy river.

Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla deployed 4,000 soldiers throughout the country, and President Vaclav Havel cut short a Portugal vacation because of flooding that destroyed or rendered impassable more than a dozen bridges.

Among the wrecked spans was a 13-century bridge in Pisek, some 60 miles south of Prague. The normally placid Otava River swamped the 360-foot structure, leaving only the heads of the statues decorating the bridge above the water line.

At the Zoological Garden on the outskirts of Prague, about 400 animals were moved to higher ground Tuesday. Zookeepers euthanized a 35-year-old Indian elephant called Kadir after he was stranded in flooded part of the zoo and officials decided he could not be saved from the flooding. A gorilla also was missing and presumed drowned Wednesday.

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