DRESDEN, 18 August — German authorities scrambled yesterday to evacuate thousands of people from cities on the River Elbe as record floods peaked in the eastern architectural jewel of Dresden. Floodwaters on the Elbe inundated several more towns and threatened a major chemical industrial park yesterday, raising fears of a serious pollution spill.
The focus of the Elbe flood disaster shifted downstream to the famed porcelain manufacturer city of Meissen and the chemical production center at Bitterfeld. Water breached levees at Bitterfeld, inundating most of the town and heading toward its adjacent chemical factory complex. The floodwaters threatened a succession of towns and cities on the Elbe and its tributary, the Mulde.
The cities of Magdeburg and Wittenberg were on standby for evacuation, while Muehlberg and Bitterfeld had been subject to emergency evacuation overnight. Some 100 residents in Bitterfeld and 50 in Muehlberg who refused to leave were warned they would have to pay for any subsequent police rescue.
The flooding is forecast to reach northwest Germany by Tuesday, with the port city of Hamburg endangered.
Elsewhere in flood-ravaged central Europe, where at least 91 people have died in a week in Germany, Russia, Austria and the Czech Republic, Budapest became the next capital city under threat with Hungarian officials saying flood levels were due to peak there today or tomorrow. In Dresden, Mayor Ingolf Rossberg said the city was facing its greatest test since US and British planes destroyed it in World War II.
In many areas, workers desperately trying to shore up riverbanks and dikes had to be evacuated themselves as they finally gave in to the pressure.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to abandon their houses, roads and bridges are wrecked and large swathes of countryside under water from the worst floods to hit central Europe in memory.
In Hungary, 200 homes and part of a royal palace were under threat from the rising Danube in the historic city of Visegrad.
The Danube river, swollen by torrential rains, rose rapidly in Budapest, but Hungarian officials predicted the city’s 10-meter defenses would keep out flooding.
They expressed cautious optimism even though Danube water levels have broken all-time records on the upper section of Europe’s largest inland shipping route.
The situation was also critical in the northern Czech Republic. In Prague, residents are starting to return but some 200,000 people remain displaced, and authorities are now turning their attention to preventing an outbreak of epidemics.
In Bitterfeld, which lies on the Mulde, a tributary of the Elbe, thousands of volunteers battled to build makeshift dams in the center, but half the town was quickly under water.
Most of the 16,000 residents have fled. For the moment the chemicals complex was dry, officials there said, adding that there was no ecological risk.
At Muehlberg, some 50 km north of Dresden, dikes finally gave way as police hurriedly evacuated the last few residents who had ignored earlier instructions to leave. Relief workers had been evacuated an hour earlier.
Evacuations were also ordered in neighboring villages. Likewise in Torgau, whose 15,000 residents have been forced to flee. (The Independent)
