Flood waves sweep towards Hungarian capital

Floods spread through eastern Germany today, adding to the misery of tens of thousands of people forced from their homes as the country faced its biggest relief effort since the Second World War.

In Hungary, the Danube River reached record levels in Budapest after relief workers spent the night reinforcing dikes with sandbags. The capital’s high flood walls were expected to contain the raging waters.

Europe is wrestling with the aftermath of violent storms that swept the continent two weeks ago. German authorities reported two more deaths today, bringing the death toll across Europe to at least 108.

The floodwater has ebbed in Austria and the Czech Republic and begun to fall in Dresden, the biggest German city hit so far, allowing the start of a massive cleanup and rebuilding operation expected to cost €20bn.

But thousands of emergency workers, soldiers and volunteers were working round the clock to pile tons of sandbags onto sodden dikes along Germany’s Elbe and Mulde rivers to protect smaller towns.

Sweeping towards the North Sea from the hills on the Czech border, the Elbe forced workers to retreat after bursting its banks in seven places yesterday near Wittenberg, officials said.

Rescuers used boats and ropes to bring several people trapped in their homes to safety and were scouring nearby villages in the darkness to ensure everyone had been evacuated.

High water also threatened the city of Dessau, best known for its Bauhaus architecture school. Helicopters dumped sand on the dikes to strengthen them.

More than 80,000 people have been evacuated across the region.

In Bitterfeld, workers shored up dikes on the Mulde about a mile from one of Europe’s largest chemical industry complexes, home to 350 companies.

Authorities played down fears that the chemical plants could be overwhelmed and release toxins into the water that has covered part of the town since Saturday.

In the city of Magdeburg, people began to move out as the Elbe’s crest surged towards the North Sea. The river is expected to threaten there in the next few days.

As the Danube River surged to a historic high around Budapest, authorities evacuated about 2,000 people in the area yesterday. But they said the city would not see the devastation that befell other countries because of 33ft high walls running along the river banks throughout much of the city.

The river peaked at a height of 28.3ft in Budapest early today, a touch over the previous record set in 1965, then began falling, said Tibor Dobson, a spokesman for Hungary’s national disaster relief office.

Most evacuated towns lie north of Budapest. A few areas in the southern part of the capital also were evacuated - areas where the flood walls do not rise as high as in the city centre.

The government postponed an annual fireworks ceremony scheduled for August 20, or St Stephen’s Day, which commemorates the king who founded Hungary 1,000 years ago.

“It would be unbecoming to celebrate with fireworks in a situation where tens of thousands are working on the dams,” Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy said after the meeting.