Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised €100 million to victims of Germany’s worst flood in a decade yesterday as she toured areas devastated by the deluge, which has killed 12 people across central Europe.
In the Czech Republic, swathes of Prague’s suburbs were under water but metal barriers along the Vltava River shielded the historic centre as the floods shifted north to Germany.
In Germany’s Saxony state, about 10,000 people were forced from their homes and thousands more were evacuated in Bavaria.
The 12 deaths occurred in the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland and Germany since the weekend.
Forecasters said receding rains would help water levels to drop across the Czech Republic but that parts of Slovakia and Hungary, as well as Germany, would be affected in coming days.
Conservative Merkel, who faces an election in September and hopes to win a third term, was keen to show she was helping those affected as she visited the Bavarian city of Passau, where soldiers had been piling up sandbags and clearing mud.
“Even if the water level is slowly retreating, the effects will be felt for a long time,” she told reporters.
“Therefore €100 million of emergency aid is available from the state (of Bavaria) and the federal government. Now it is a matter of getting the aid quickly to people.”
Meteorologists predicted the worst might be over for cities such as Passau but warned of flooding in Dresden and nearby Meissen, both devastated by floods in 2002.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, returning from a helicopter flight over threatened areas, said he expected the River Danube to reach its highest level tomorrow. Slovakia had taken the necessary measures to prevent the water from breaching flood barriers, he said.
The Zwickauer Mulde River broke its banks after days of rain and Grimma’s old town was submerged. The river, usually at a level of about 1.6 metres, reached six metres on Monday.
German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer said he expected the damage in Germany to cost hundreds of millions of euros.
Merkel’s tour of the stricken area is reminiscent of 2002 when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder donned rubber boots and rushed to flood-hit areas only a few weeks before an election which he was at risk of losing. His decisive crisis management gave Schroeder a boost in the polls which, along with his resistance to the Iraq war, helped him win a second term. In the Czech Republic, areas to the south and north of the capital Prague were still under water yesterday, including the zoo and horse racing track. Much of the subway system stayed shut.
Czech electricity producer CEZ shut down its Melnik 2 and 3 coal-fired power plants yesterday as a preventative action against floods on the Elbe River.
Spolana, a chemical factory in Neratovice, north of Prague, said it had moved dangerous substances to a safe location and shut down all production.
The floods across the region sent shares in reinsurers Munich Re and Hannover Re down by about 2.5 per cent on Monday, with markets anticipating big claims from property owners once the waters recede.
High water is likely to stop shipping on the Rhine in south Germany until at least tomorrow morning, the local navigation authority said.