Thousands evacuated as Dresden awaits its fate

More than 30,000 people were evacuated from historic Dresden today as floodwaters in the Elbe River surged past an all-time high, closing in on cultural landmarks already waterlogged by an earlier wave of high water.

At the famed 19th century Semper Opera in the old city, emergency crews gave up pumping water out of the basement as the dirty brown tide kept rising.

City authorities ordered bridges across the Elbe closed to all but emergency traffic.

The Elbe _ fed by high water that earlier devastated Prague _ rose above nine meters (29 1/2 feet) today, shattering the previous all-time high of 8.76 meters (28 3/4 feet) reached in 1845. City officials said the flood wave was expected to crest on Saturday.

Across the Dresden area, adults and children built sandbag barriers, cars floated in flooded streets and residents used rubber boats to get around.

A terminal at Dresden airport was transformed into a 145 bed emergency hospital for some of the hundreds of patients evacuated from hospitals in the city.

Other parts of east Germany also braced for floods in the next few days. Up to 20,000 residents were to be evacuated from Magdeburg, about 120 miles down the Elbe to north.

In Dresden, the number of people forced to leave residences, hospitals and nursing homes rose to 33,000 after several neighbourhoods were evacuated, police spokesman Marko Laske said.

Floodwaters threatened to push further into the Semper Opera and the Zwinger painting gallery of old masters, both already hit by a first wave early this week. Thousands of priceless artworks stored in basements have been brought to safety on higher floors or at other locations.

At the Albertinum museum, ancient Egyptian tablets were stacked between Roman statues. Several stone statues to big to move in the rush remained in the basement, but were not expected to suffer major damage.

Near the Elbe ramparts overwhelmed by flooding, the Zwinger’s huge courtyard was under water.

Inside, works by masters such as Rubens and Rembrandt were stacked eight to 10 high in their gilded frames on the top floor of the Zwinger, where pumps ran nonstop to combat basement flooding. Officials said they were hopeful that four large paintings hurriedly suspended from the basement ceiling would stay dry.

"It’s quite incredible that we saved everything," said Martin Roth, the general director of Dresden’s museums.

"Next week everybody will probably collapse."

The death toll in Europe’s flooding rose to at least 103 after Czech authorities found the bodies of a motorist swept away by floodwaters and of a 44-year-old drowning victim in a swollen brook. Authorities in Saxony state, where Dresden is the capital, reported a new flood-related death, bringing Germany’s total to 12.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder invited leaders of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to discuss flood relief Sunday at his offices in Berlin, the German government announced.

At east Germany’s biggest chemical industry complex in Bitterfeld, some plants moved chemicals to higher ground and partly shut down as a precaution. But a spokesman for the sprawling facility, Matthias Gabriel, said it was not at risk from floodwaters.