A 49-year-old man from Tarnobrzeg, south-east Poland, is the latest victim of the floods, which have left thousands homeless and others without electricity.
The man’s body was fished out of the water on Sunday evening after being spotted by another resident of the Dzikow district of Tarnobrzeg, who was patrolling the housing estate in a boat.
The man is the second in the Podkarpacie region to die from the floods. Last Thursday, a 59-year-old man drowned in his house after the floods hit Tarnobrzeg.
South Poland: “Slowly back to normal,” says PM
Donald Tusk photo: east news
On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk held an emergency crisis meeting, after which he told journalists that the situation in the Malopolska, Silesia, Podkarpacie and Swietokrzyskie regions had stabilised.
The Prime Minister also said that there are no signs of any organised looting of property, a reason for which many residents had earlier decided not to leave their houses in case of theft.
According to Donald Tusk, co-ordination of anti-flood task forces is improving, with extra hardware (including helicopters) being dispatched to help repair damaged flood barriers and dykes.
Wloclawek relatively unscathed
The central city of Wloclawek was prepared for flooding, with planned evaucations and water being drained earlier from the retention pool on the River Vistula between Wloclawek and Plock.
Flood levels on the Vistula dropped by half a metre on Sunday evening, after the culmination wave swept through Wloclawek flooding 35 houses.
“We were expecting the culmination wave to come through at around 1700-1800 […] but after [Sunday’s] readings, the Vistula was at its highest at 0500, reaching 8.55 metres,” Janusz Majerski, head of crisis management in Wloclawek reported to the press.
The tragedy of Swiniary
Flood levels were not as high as expected in Wloclawek due to a massive rupture in the flood defences near Swiniary, a village near the central town of Plock.
On Sunday morning the Vistula ripped a 100-metre hole in the flood defences there, and 4,000 people had to be evacuated immediately, with a possibility of a further 6,000 residents in 22 villages having to leave their homes.
The army was called in to help rebuild some of the flood defences, which had let in flood water at a rate of 800 cubic metres a second. Up to 5 helicopters and 100 soldiers have built over 1 kilometre of extra flood barriers, with work continuing through Sunday night.
Warsaw closes major road, Praga Port flooded
Even though flood levels on the River Vistula are descending in Warsaw, the Miedzeszynski dyke, also a major thoroughfare on the eastern bank, was closed just before midnight on Sunday.
After 2300 on Sunday the Vistula in the capital was only 31 cm less then it had been 24 hours before, when it was at its peak.
“The most dangerous situation we had on Sunday was in the Praga Port, where for 12 hours straight 300 firemen, 200 soldiers and 100 volunteers were active in the rescue efforts,” Ewa Gawor, head of crisis management in Warsaw told the media.
The situation in Praga Port is now safer, according to Gawor, “for the time being,” she added.
Oder causes choas in Wroclaw
After Wroclaw mayor Rafal Dutkiewicz had told journalists on Saturday that the flood walls would remain intact in the south-western city, the River Oder burst its banks and flooded the district of Kozanow.
Up to 2,000 people in Kozanow and an area surrounding Legnica, to the west of Wroclaw, are without electricity.
Many dykes have become sodden along the River Oder, meaning that hundreds of people have had to abandon their properties. Flood levels in Wroclaw have gone down by 43 cm relative to the culmination wave there.
Central Lodz region hit
The central province of Lodz is fighting against high levels on the River Warta, which is showing levels 21 cm higher than the catastrophic floods of 1997.
The Warta and Pilica rivers are filling up retention pools near the towns of Sulejow and Sieradz. Only 65 people so far have decided to evacuate, however. (jb)
Sources: IAR/PAP/tvn24
Thenews.pl |
