2024-09-16 12:44:18
In Poland, the flood reality is worse than what was expected. Wrocław, a city of 70,000 in the southwest of the country, is preparing for the onslaught of the raging Odra River and fears a repeat of the 1997 disaster.
Footage shows floods in the Polish cities of Nisa and Kladsko. | Video: Reuters
Mayor Jacek Sutryk announced that forecasts and models unfortunately underestimated the flow of the Odra. Wroclaw expects the culmination on Wednesday. Due to the critical situation, the government held an extraordinary meeting in Warsaw on Monday morning. Prime Minister Donald Tusk is to declare a state of natural disaster. He also announced that the cabinet will allocate one billion zlotys (almost six billion crowns) to help people and companies affected by the floods.
“We expect a flood wave in Wrocław on Wednesday around six o’clock in the afternoon. The crisis may last for several days. We want to be as prepared as possible for the worst-case scenario,” said Sutryk.
The Aktuálně.cz reporter approached Polish journalist Michal Zablocký, who is dedicated to the environment. He caught up with him on his way to the endangered Wrocław.
“Especially in Lower Silesia, we all thought that we were better prepared than in 2010 and 1997. Unfortunately, we did not take into account how quickly the climate crisis is progressing and how much water the warming climate is bringing to Central Europe. The center of extreme precipitation is right now at sources of the Odra, Morava, Elbe and Vistula. Unfortunately, we still burn a huge amount of coal and cut down trees that could somehow stop the water,” says Zablocki.
Poland, like the Czech Republic, was hit by major floods in 1997. Fifty-four people died in Poland at that time. Another major flood in 2010 claimed the lives of twenty-five people.
So far, according to Zablocké, politics is not too involved in the flood crisis. “The political fight is on the sidelines at the moment. We have presidential elections in Poland next year, last year there were parliamentary elections and the current opposition is facing other problems. There are occasional verbal exchanges about what who has done in flood protection during the past years, but only marginally,” he describes Zablocki.
Since Saturday, floods have claimed the lives of five people in Poland. Among the victims is a well-known doctor, surgeon Krzysztof Kamiňski. Rescuers found his body early Monday morning in the city of Nisa. He was returning by car at night from hospital duty and got stuck on a flooded road. He managed to free himself from the car, but he drowned.
According to the server Onet.pl, the reservoir in Otmuchov is overflowing, and many places in Lower Silesia are thus critically endangered. Lower Silesia is a voivodeship adjacent to the Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice and Olomouc regions in the Czech Republic. The army deployed soldiers and heavy equipment to help: both to strengthen barriers and ramparts, and to remove the consequences of the disaster in the affected towns and villages.
On the night of Monday, the towns of Glucholazy and Kladsko, both located near the Czech border, were under water. “We lost the battle, the city is flooded,” said the mayor of Kladsk, Michal Piszko. The level of the river Kladská Nisa rose to almost 6.5 meters. In Glucholazy, a bridge collapsed and water flowed unstoppably through the streets of the town. “Unfortunately, the worst scenarios have come true. Evacuations are no longer voluntary. We are evacuating everyone, whether they want to or not,” announced the mayor of Glucholaz, Pawel Szymkowicz.
Polish rescuers and soldiers are using the Starlink communication system in some places because the signals of mobile operators are reporting outages.
Video: Rescue helicopter intervenes in Jeseník (September 15, 2024)
Footage from intervening helicopters operating, among others, in Jeseník (September 15, 2024) | Video: Police of the Czech Republic