Five dead as torrential rains batter Central and Eastern Europe

At least five people have been found dead in eastern Romania after torrential storms dumped unprecedented rain, leaving hundreds stranded in flooded areas, emergency authorities said on Saturday.

Rescue services scrambled to save people in the hard-hit eastern counties of Galati and Vaslui. The bodies of three older women and one man were found in four localities, the Department for Emergency Situations said.

Emergency authorities released video footage showing teams of rescuers evacuating people using small lifeboats through muddy waters and carrying some older people to safety.

Some of the most significant flood damage was concentrated in Galati, where 5,000 households were affected. A Black Hawk helicopter was also deployed there to help with the search and rescue efforts.

The storms battered 19 localities in eight counties in Romania, with strong winds downing dozens of trees that damaged cars and blocked roads and traffic. Authorities sent text message alerts to residents to warn them of adverse weather as emergency services rushed to remove floodwater from homes.

Romanian Environment Minister Mircea Fechet told The Associated Press news agency that in some of the badly flooded areas, more than 160 litres (42 gallons) of rain fell per square metre (about 10.7 square feet), which he said is a rare occurrence.

The stormy weather comes as several Central European nations – the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary – anticipate severe flooding over the weekend.

In the Czech Republic, river waters reached dangerously high levels in many areas, prompting the authorities to evacuate hundreds of people, including from a hospital in the second-largest city of Brno, to escape raging floods.

By Saturday evening, Czech authorities had declared the highest flood warnings in more than 70 areas across the country and said thousands more people should be prepared to be evacuated as the rains continued to slam down.

In neighbouring Austria, authorities declared 24 villages in the northeast Lower Austria province “disaster zones” on Saturday afternoon and began evacuating residents from those areas.

The torrential downpours have also caused a sharp rise in water levels in the Danube River in the Austrian capital, Vienna, where special flood relief channels were built in the 1970s and 80s and are likely to be tested over the weekend. The Kamp River, a tributary of the Danube, is also swelling because of the unprecedented weather event.

Heavy rain also hit Moldova on Saturday, where emergency workers pumped floodwater from dozens of houses in several localities, and 13 localities in three districts suffered partial electricity outages, authorities said.

In Poland, many people were evacuated as a precautionary measure on Saturday from two villages near the town of Nysa, in the Nysa River basin, after meteorologists warned of unprecedented rainfall. Some farms were flooded.