The mayor of a Polish city has asked all 44,000 residents to evacuate, as widespread flooding continues to batter swathes of central Europe.
Nysa mayor Kordian Kolbiarz asked people to head for higher ground, citing the risk of an embankment breaching and releasing a cascade of water into the town from a nearby lake.
On Monday, the death toll from the floods that hit central Europe over the weekend rose to 16, with more casualties recorded in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria.
Budapest said it would close roads near the river Danube which runs through the city, citing the risk of flooding later this week.
“Please evacuate your belongings, yourselves, your loved ones. It is worth getting to the top floor of the building immediately, because the wave may be several metres high. This means that the whole town will be flooded,” Mayor Kolbiarz wrote.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said one billion zloty (£197m) would be allocated for flood victims in the country, adding that Poland would also apply for EU relief funds. His government has also declared a state of natural disaster.
Although conditions have stabilised in some places, others are bracing themselves for more disruption and danger.
In Slovakia, the overflowing of the Danube River caused flooding in the Old Town area of the capital, Bratislava, with local media reporting that water levels exceeded 9m (30ft) and were expected to rise further.
Getty ImagesHungary is bracing itself for floods in the coming days. Warnings are in force along 500km (310 miles) of the Danube.
The river is rising by about a metre every 24 hours, with Budapest’s mayor offering residents a million sandbags to protect against floodwaters.
Some tram lines will not operate, while roads along the river will be closed in the Hungarian capital from Monday evening. Trains between Budapest and Vienna have also been cancelled.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on X that he had postponed all his international obligations “due to the extreme weather conditions and the ongoing floods in Hungary”.
The highest rainfall totals have been in the Czech Republic. In the north-eastern town of Jesenik, 473mm (19in) of rain has fallen since Thursday morning – five times the average monthly rainfall.
The Czech fire service delivered bottles of drinking water to stranded villages, where people were told not to drink water from their taps or their wells as it is likely heavily contaminated.
In the Austrian town of St Polten, more rain has fallen in four days than in the whole of the wettest autumn on record, in 1950.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the armed forces had been deployed to offer assistance to storm-hit regions. Austria’s Climate Ministry said €300m (£253m) in recovery funds would be made available.
Most parties paused campaigning for the federal elections due in less than two weeks, on 29 September.
Villages and town were submerged in eastern Romania. Emil Dragomir, mayor of Slobozia Conachi, told media that the flooding had had a devastating impact.
“If you were here, you would cry instantly, because people are desperate, their whole lives’ work is gone, there were people who were left with just the clothes they had on,” he said.
Thousands of people have been evacuted in Poland, including the personnel and patients of a hospital in the town of Nysa. Roads have been badly disrupted and train traffic was suspended in many parts of the country.
On Monday morning, the mayor of Paczków in south-west Poland appealed to residents to evacuate after water began overflowing in a nearby reservoir, endangering the town.
