Death toll rises as Storm Boris lashes central, eastern Europe

At least seven people dead as heavy rains hit Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

One person has drowned in Poland and an Austrian fireman has died responding to floods, as Storm Boris lashes central and eastern Europe with torrential rains.

Sunday’s deaths bring the overall toll from the storm to seven, with thousands evacuated across the continent hit by days of downpours and rivers bursting their banks.

Since Thursday, swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have been hit by high winds and unusually heavy rainfall.

More rain and strong winds are forecast until at least Monday.

The rains have flooded streets and submerged entire neighbourhoods in some places, while shutting down public transport and electricity in others.

Some areas of Austria’s Tyrol region were also blanketed by up to a metre (three feet) of snow – an exceptional situation for mid-September, which saw temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) last week.

‘Worst hours of our lives’

In Romania, a body was found on Sunday, after four people were reported killed on Saturday. Officials said more than 5,000 households and 15,000 people were affected.

“The water came into the house, it destroyed the walls, everything,” Sofia Basalic, 60, a resident of Romania’s village of Pechea, in the hard-hit region of Galati, told AFP news agency.

“It took the chickens, the rabbits, everything. It took the oven, the washing machine, the refrigerator. I have nothing left,” she said.

Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis on Sunday said the region is once again “facing the effects of climate change, which are increasingly present on the European continent, with dramatic consequences”.

A view of the rising floodwaters in the Romanian village of Slobozia Conachi [Daniel Mihailescu/AFP]

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters on Sunday that “the situation is very dramatic”.

Tusk confirmed the first death by drowning in the Klodzko region near the Polish-Czech border in the southwest of the country, which has been hit hardest by the floods.

Around 1,600 people have been evacuated in Klodzko, and Polish authorities have called in the army to support firefighters.

Authorities have also shut the Golkowice border crossing with the Czech Republic after the river in the region flooded its banks on Saturday.

People with a dog wade through a flooded street in Glucholazy, southern Poland [Sergei Gapon/AFP]

Meanwhile in the Czech Republic, police on Sunday said four people had been missing. A dam in the south of the country also burst its banks, flooding towns and villages downstream.

Separately, in northeastern Austria, a fireman died in floods in the Lower Austria region, which has been classified as a natural disaster zone.

“For many residents, the upcoming hours will be the worst of their lives,” Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria, told reporters on Sunday.

Emergency services have made nearly 5,000 interventions overnight in Lower Austria, where flooding had trapped many residents in their homes.

Slovakia has declared a state of emergency in the capital Bratislava, while in the Hungarian capital Budapest, officials have raised forecasts for the Danube River to rise in the second half of this week to above 8.5 metres (28 feet), nearing a record 8.91 metres (29 feet) seen in 2013.

“According to forecasts, one of the biggest floods of the past years is approaching Budapest,” Budapest’s Mayor Gergely Karacsony said.

“But we are prepared to tackle it,” he added.