Flooding sparked by Storm Boris in central Europe has burst dams, knocked out power and killed at least 11 people, authorities said on Monday as some communities were cut off four days into the disaster.
High winds and unusually heavy rainfall have hit swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia since Friday.
“I have lived here for 16 years, and I have never seen such flooding,” Judith Dickson, who lives in Austria’s Sankt Poelten, told the national broadcaster ORF.
The rains have flooded streets and submerged entire neighbourhoods in some places, while shutting down public transport and electricity in others.
In Austria, two people, aged 70 and 80, were found dead in their flooded homes in two communities in Lower Austria, the worst-hit state, police said.
One firefighter died over the weekend while fighting the flooding, which state authorities have described as “dramatic”.
“I have small children. They were so happy and got everything ready to do something in the garden. But everything is just destroyed,” Sigrid Kohl, who lives in Kamegg village, told ORF.
So far, 12 dams have broken, with muddy rivers raging, while thousands of households are without electricity and water in Lower Austria state, authorities said.
Several communities also remain cut off, while hundreds of people have been evacuated by helicopter from car roofs and other places, according to authorities.
“It is not over. It stays critical. It stays dramatic,” warned Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria, adding there was a high danger of more damns breaking.
The extent of damage is not known yet, she said.
In the Czech Republic, one person drowned in a river close to Bruntal in the northeast, while authorities have “recorded seven people missing”, according to police.
Some 119,000 households — mostly in the northeast where a state of calamity has been declared — were without electricity as of Sunday evening, according to the CEZ power group.
In Poland, where one person has died, 2,600 people have been evacuated in the last 24 hours, according to Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.
While the water in some cities, such as Klodzko, is starting to recede, revealing destruction and desolation, more flooding was feared in the north.
A video shot in Klodzko showed water covering a debris-strewn street with shop windows destroyed.
Water has also submerged the town of Glucholazy on the Polish-Czech border with many residents taking refuge in a school.
“The police came for the first time on Friday but we stayed at home because we were convinced that nothing would happen,” Joanna Polacasz, who now shelters at the school after the waters rose forcing her to leave, told AFP.
“This flood is the worst ever in Glucholazy. We are trying to talk to people, support them, offer them tea and, above all, show them that they are not alone,” said Paulina Grzesiowska-Nowak, a Red Cross rescuer who is helping those evacuated.
In Romania, flooding triggered by Storm Boris killed six people earlier, with people climbing on roofs to escape the water.
“The water came into the house, it destroyed the walls, everything,” Sofia Basalic, 60, a resident of Romania’s village of Pechea, in the hard-hit region of Galati, told AFP.
“It took the chickens, the rabbits, everything. It took the oven, the washing machine, the refrigerator. I have nothing left,” she said.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Romania would “clean up and see what can be salvaged”.
“Compared to 2013 the amount of water was almost three times bigger. It was hard to handle that kind of fury of nature,” he told reporters on Monday.
In northwest Hungary, the government deployed more than 350 soldiers to reinforce flood barriers as the Danube and rivers along its basin are expected to surge.
Experts say climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as torrential rains and floods.