Thousands evacuated in Germany floods

rains and caused extensive damage in central and southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary.

The latest fatality was an 80-year-old man who died of a heart attack in Austria on Sunday while cleaning up debris caused by flooding, the German news agency dpa reported.

In Magdeburg, the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt in eastern Germany, more than 23 000 residents had to leave their homes on Sunday afternoon after many streets and buildings were flooded and electricity was shut off, dpa said. The neighbourhood of Rothensee was especially hard-hit by the floods of the Elbe River, residents were being evacuated with tanks, trucks and buses.

“Rothensee is filling up like a bathtub,” Germany army spokesperson Andre Sabzog told dpa. “Around 700 soldiers were trying frantically to build a dam of sandbags around a power substation.

“A flooding of the substation would not only leave thousands of households without water, but also lead to a breakdown of the neighbourhood’s dewatering pumps.

“Another 8 000 people had been evacuated from the town of Aken and its neighbouring villages after a dam on the Elbe River broke on Saturday,” police spokesperson Uwe Holz said.

Further north on the Elbe River, residents were trying to protect themselves from flooding by building levees along the banks of the rising waterway.
Officials in Saxony-Anhalt state also were investigating what appeared to be a threat to destroy dams.

Several media outlets said they had received a letter threatening to blow up dams on the Elbe River, Holger Stahlknecht, the state’s interior minister said on Sunday.

“We are taking the letter seriously,” he told dpa. He said authorities have stepped up their surveillance of dams and urged residents to remain calm.

In Hungary, officials said the flooded Danube River was expected to reach Budapest late on Sunday, but that defences should keep the water out of most of the capital.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said no casualties have been reported in his country, but that 7 000 soldiers and thousands of volunteers were packing sandbags on the banks of the Danube to shore up flood walls. — AFP.