Dresden floodwaters break historic record

Thousands of people were evacuated from the baroque city of Dresden in eastern Germany today as floods on the Elbe River reached record levels.

At the city’s 19th century Sempre Opera, emergency crews gave up pumping water out of the basement as the dirty brown tide kept rising.

The Elbe, fed by waters that earlier devastated Prague, rose to almost 30ft early today, shattering the previous record set in 1845. Cultural landmarks waterlogged by floods earlier this week were swamped today.

About 38,000 residents of the city have been evacuated as officials warned that the high waters were likely to crest later today.

Across the city, people who remained pitched in to build flood barriers, sometimes using inflatable boats to get around.

At the Zwiger gallery, most of the priceless works by old masters had already been carried to safety on higher floors in the building.

Residents have also been evacuated further north in the city of Magedeburg and in Brandenburg state, where rivers are feared to burst their banks over the weekend.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has described the floods as a "national catastrophe" and promised to spearhead a rebuilding effort that he said would cost billions of pounds.

The chancellor is falling behind in the polls for elections in September, and he did not say where the money would come from.

At least 100 people have died in Europe’s flooding. Eleven were killed in Germany, but most of the deaths were in Russia, where holidaymakers were swept into the Black Sea by a wall of water.

In Prague, city officials were still refusing to let people return to the historic Old Town today because of fears that as floodwaters recede, buildings could cave in and collapse.

Vladimir Vihan, a deputy mayor in charge of cultural monuments and palaces, said much of the city is built on sand _ and as the waters recede, sand also will be swept away, leaving underground pockets of air and making much of the Old Town unstable.

"We fear that in the coming days and weeks, houses, palaces and more streets will cave in," he said.

"It can come later."