There were warnings, but the situation was underestimated. In Austria, Poland and Romania, torrential rains and floods are leaving a trail of destruction.
Sunday Close: The situation has become dramatically worse after a dam collapsed in the snow-covered mountains on the Polish-Czech border Photo: Maciej Kulczynski/pap
Linz Taz | Just days after a heatwave that saw temperatures exceed 30 degrees Celsius, Storm Boris brought torrential rains to parts of central and eastern Europe. Up to 400 litres per square metre fell in parts of Austria, as well as the Czech Republic, southwestern Poland, Slovakia and Romania.
In Poland, a dam burst and thousands of people were evacuated. Five people have died in Romania’s floods. Thousands of homes have been damaged. “This is a disaster of enormous proportions,” said the mayor of Slobozia Conachi, a town particularly hard hit in Romania.
The situation is also very tense in Austria, especially in Lower Austria, where rivers are overflowing their banks and surging into dangerous torrents. A state of disaster has been declared across the state. Several communities have been evacuated. It was announced Sunday morning that a firefighter died during flood operations in Lower Austria. The Lilienfeld region is also cut off from the outside world. Authorities there are now recommending that drinking water be boiled.
The city of Vienna was also affected, with docks and streets along the Danube Canal flooded. The Vienna River, which normally flows over banks a metre deep, rose to street level. Four subway lines had to be closed in sections. Travel to Vienna on Sunday along the Western Railway or the Western Motorway was also impossible.
A disaster has also been declared in Bratislava.
The Danube itself is currently not a threat to Vienna, thanks to its complex flood protection system. In Budapest, for example, 250 km away, people are preparing for the coming day. A disaster has also been declared in Bratislava.
The flooding was by no means a surprise. Earlier this week, meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann warned that Platform X would receive a huge amount of rain. He blames the public broadcaster ORF Previously not properly warned about the dangers of weather forecasts ORF Royer Austria I underestimated it. That much ORF He rejected the criticism and cited his continued reporting. One thing is clear: many in Austria seem to have underestimated the extent of the rain.
Rainfall in eastern Austria appears to have started to decrease since Sunday evening, although heavy rain is expected to continue in the early hours of the morning and throughout Monday, gradually tapering off from Tuesday.
According to experts, there is no doubt that climate change is causing increasingly extreme weather events. But it is not yet clear whether and to what extent the floods will affect the parliamentary elections two weeks from now. The far-right FPÖ party, which is leading in the polls, downplays climate change, but the ruling ÖVP has also made climate stickers a crime, favors combustion engines and opposes “100 speed limits” on motorways.
Only the Greens prioritize climate protection, but they have often failed to win over their government partners in the final legislative period. As of now, Austria has no binding climate protection law to reduce greenhouse gases. Environmentalists also criticize the efforts over the years, especially in the transport sector, as inadequate.
