Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said that he will not be calling a state of emergency to fight the flood waters which have engulfed parts of southern Poland.

After a meeting of the government‘s crisis management team, Wednesday night, PM Tusk said that a state of emergency would not help the aid effort in the region.

“When I asked [local rescue services] whether the introduction of a state of emergency would help them at this most important stage in operations - which is to rescue people and guard property against the water - they explicitly said that there is no such need,” Donald Tusk told reporters.

The state of emergency would enable state officials to force locals to leave areas at risk of flooding, after many stayed at home as water flooded homes and apartments. But Tusk said that “working with people is better than coercion”. Changing the legal status of the rescue operation would do little to improve its effectiveness, he said.

photo - east news

The floods - the worst to hit Poland since 1997 - took the life of a 57 year-old man on Wednesday, near Auschwitz, the fifth to die during the disaster.

PM Tusk said the cost of the damage could reach two billion euros. He announced a financial aid package for victim of floods which have been described as the worst to hit Poland since the Wroclaw area was devastated by heavy raid in 1997. A flood wave recorded on the Vistula River was the highest recorded in 160 years. “It‘s the highest since the times of the [Russian] Tsar,” he said.

The flood wave, which is flowing north, will hit the capital of Warsaw by the weekend.

The news for residents of the historic city of Krakow, was better yesterday, however. On Wednesday evening the President of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski said that the level of the Vistula River in the city fell on Wednesday to about 60 cm. The city still has problems with protecting embankments, but, the president assured, the situation is under control. (pg)

Sources: PAP, IAR

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