Authorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic
\n WARSAW
\nSoldiers and volunteers in southwestern Poland were laying sandbags Wednesday near swollen rivers in the region of Wroclaw as they worked to safeguard homes and businesses after days of flooding across Central Europe.
\nSeveral Central European nations have been hit by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania as a result of a low pressure system that began dumping record rainfall in the region last Thursday.
\nAuthorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic.
\nThe combination of floods in Central Europe and deadly wildfires in Portugal are joint proof of a \u201cclimate breakdown\u201d that will become the norm unless drastic action is taken, the European Union\u2019s head office said Wednesday.
\nThe fourth death in the Czech Republic was reported Wednesday, when police said they found the body of a 70-year-old woman who was swept away by waters on Sunday in the town of Kobyla nad Vidnavkou near the town of Jesenik, located in the badly hit northeast.
\nThe weather has improved, with warm and sunny conditions in the Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere. Water levels were falling in some places, allowing authorities and residents to clean up debris.
\nFirefighters in Poland were pumping water out of flooded streets and basements. And in Romania, about 1,000 firefighters were working across the country to clean up severely affected areas, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations said Wednesday in a Facebook post.
\nBut some areas are still facing a threat, particularly in southwestern Poland.
\nSoldiers and residents in Marcinkowice, near Wroclaw, were laying sandbags near a bridge over the Olawa River, whose waters flow into the Oder, the major river that rises in the Oder Mountains in the Czech Republic and runs north through Poland to Germany.
\nThe community leader of the town of Olawa, Artur Piotrowski, described the situation as difficult. He told the Polish state news agency PAP that two villages in a low-lying area have been flooded since Monday and residents refused to evacuate.
\nThousands of Polish soldiers were in action. Some evacuated people and animals \u2014 including dogs and horses \u2014 from flood-affected areas and distributed food and drinking water. The army also posted on X on Wednesday that it set up a field hospital in the town of Nysa after patients in a hospital there had to be evacuated earlier this week.
\nExperts have been preparing for flood threats due to the cresting Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 residents, and Wroclaw, home to about 640,000 residents, which suffered disastrous flooding in 1997.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Authorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic WARSAW Soldiers and volunteers in southwestern Poland were laying sandbags Wednesday near swollen rivers in the region of Wroclaw as they worked to safeguard homes and businesses after days of flooding across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-432029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n