[ad_1]
Romain Rouillard with AFP / Photo credit: DANIEL MIHAILESCU / AFP
Evacuated homes, flooded streets, power cuts and devastated landscapes in the heart of Europe. Since Friday, storm Boris has been wreaking havoc in Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, but also in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. In total, at least 15 people have died, including 6 in Romania alone, the hardest-hit country. A heavy toll to which are added dozens of people reported missing.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed in a message on X her “solidarity with all those affected by the devastating floods” and said the EU was “ready to provide support”. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cancelled his speech to the European Parliament, while his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk announced on Monday an immediate aid package of 1 billion zlotys, or €235 million, to the most affected regions of his country. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of homes are without electricity and/or water, roads are cut off and rail transport has ground to a halt.
The damage has not spared large cities, such as here in Krakow. Heavy rainfall has caused the level of the Vistula to rise and flooded some parts of the city. As proof of the exceptional nature of this weather event, the river was only 25 cm high just a week ago, while the region was facing a major drought.
© THOMAS KRONSTEINER / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
© ASKIN KIYAGAN / ANADOLU / ANADOLU VIA AFP
A similar situation occurred in Vienna, where the Danube burst its banks in places, draining large quantities of water into the city’s streets. Four metro lines are still partially closed and a river cruise ship, which was due to sail to Budapest, Hungary, had to remain at the dock, with 102 passengers on board.
© ALEX HALADA / AFP
The region of Lower Austria (here the town of Schönberg am Kamp), located in the northeast, was particularly shaken by the storm, to the point of being classified as a natural disaster zone. And the forecasts do not inspire optimism since “hydrologists predict extremely heavy rains in the coming hours, up to 60 millimeters”, warned its vice-governor, Stephan Pernkopf.
© MICHAL CIZEK / AFP
© MICHAL CIZEK / AFP
After the overflowing of the river of the same name, the town of Opava in the Czech Republic was emptied of a large part of its 55,000 inhabitants, forced to evacuate. The town is located in the northeast of the country, near the Polish border, where the situation is particularly critical with 430mm of precipitation in 72 hours, according to agroclimatologist Serge Zaka. In the village of Velke Hostice, residents barricaded themselves using a wall of sandbags about 500m long, reports AFP.
© AFP PHOTO / ROMANIAN INSPECTORATE FOR EMERGENCY SITUATIONS
© DANIEL MIHAILESCU / AFP
In Romania, where storm Boris caused the most damage, the situation is most worrying in the west of the country, around the city of Galați. In Pechea (first photo), more than a third of the municipality has been devastated, assures Mayor Mihai Mancila, “including agricultural land”. The second photo shows the rescue of a man in the village of Slobozia Conachi, about twenty kilometers north of Galați. Mayor Emil Dragomir has launched an appeal for donations to help dozens of children affected by the disaster.
Galați, Romania, following storm Boris. Pics via Pro Lider FM pic.twitter.com/klNFPbl3Me
— Paula Erizanu (@paulaerizanu) September 15, 2024
On X, climatologist Christophe Cassou, who speaks of floods of “surely unprecedented” violence, attributes this storm to the famous polar air drop, responsible for a significant drop in temperatures in France last week. This descent “caused the formation of a depression that settled over central Europe”.
THE #floods#Boris Central Europe are of a violence surely unprecedented. The event is so extreme that the greatest caution is required in its attribution to causal factors
Ex: we see that the moisture supply does not come from the Mediterranean but from the Black Sea
1/ pic.twitter.com/M9dxnJ91lv— Christophe Cassou (@cassouman40) September 15, 2024
Several parameters favorable to the formation of an exceptional episode then aligned. “The stationary nature of the Boris depression and its perfect position to suck in humid air from the western Black Sea correspond to the “worst storm” (ideal position to generate extreme accumulations of rain),” explains Christophe Cassou.
[ad_2]
Source link -75