WARSAW, Poland — Unusually heavy rains have hit Central Europe, causing Deadly floods in the regionFour new deaths were reported in Poland, and one each in the Czech Republic and Romania on Monday. A low pressure system has moved across the region bringing record rainfall for several days, causing flooding that has inundated parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania and is expected to affect Slovakia and Hungary later in the week.
Fourteen deaths have been reported so far: seven in Romania, five in Poland, one each in the Czech Republic and Austria.
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an emergency meeting and later declared a state of disaster in flood-hit areas, a government measure to facilitate evacuations and rescues. He also said the government would immediately provide 1 billion zloty ($258,000) to victims.
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Floods in Poland caused dams and dikes to burst, leaving roads covered in piles of rubble and mud as the waters receded, forcing a hospital in the southwestern Polish city of Nysa to evacuate about 40 patients.
Schools and offices in affected areas were closed on Monday and drinking water and food were delivered by trucks. Many Polish cities, including Warsaw, have appealed for food donations for flood victims.
Experts warned of the threat of flooding from the Oder River overflowing in the cities of Opole, with a population of about 130,000, and Wroclaw, with a population of about 640,000, which was hit by devastating floods in 1997.
Firefighters in southwest Poland said the flood victims included a surgeon who was found dead in Nysa on Monday morning while returning from work at a hospital. The bodies of two women and two men have been found in other parts of the region.
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Police in the Czech Republic said a woman drowned in the northeast, which has been hit by record rains since Thursday, and seven more people were reported missing on Monday, up from four a day earlier.
Romanian authorities announced one more death on Monday in the eastern county of Galati, bringing the country’s total death toll to seven.
One death has already been reported in Austria.
Authorities in the Czech Republic have declared a state of emergency in two regions in the northeast, including the Jeseniki Mountains near the Polish border.
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Many towns and cities in the northeast were submerged and thousands evacuated. Military helicopters joined rescuers in boats to ferry people to safety. Water receded from mountainous areas on Monday but homes and bridges were destroyed and roads damaged.
The situation is expected to improve in most parts of the country by late Monday.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala visited the town of Jesenik, one of the hardest hit areas.
“The worst is over and now we have to deal with all the damage,” Fiala said after the visit.
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In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest warned residents that the biggest floods in a decade were expected to hit the capital later this week, with waters from the Danube River set to breach the city’s downstream banks by Tuesday morning.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has cancelled planned events abroad, including a speech to a European Parliament plenary session on Wednesday in what is expected to be a heated debate over his actions since Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the European Union in July.
“Until we reach the peak and get through the worst of it, I obviously have no intention of leaving the country and will stay in the country,” he said.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony posted on Facebook that the city would use one million sandbags to strengthen flood protection measures, and urged residents near the river to be especially careful.
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