Death toll rises as Storm Boris Hits Europe

By Stefan J. Bos

Across Central and Eastern Europe, rescue workers are searching for survivors as extreme weather knocked out power, destroyed homes and dams, while killing more than a dozen people. 

Authorities said Monday that some communities were cut off four days into the disaster.

Since Friday, high winds and unusually heavy rainfall have hit regions in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. 

In the Czech Republic, where some 119,000 households, mainly in the northeast, are without electricity, authorities desperately try to save lives amid heavy flooding. Stranded residents are rescued by helicopter. 

Similar scenes were seen in Poland, where scores of patients in a hospital in the southwestern town of Nysa are among the thousands being rushed to safety, though one doctor passed away there.

Water rising 

And water levels keep rising in the Czech Republic, where many still remember the dozens who died in previous flooding.

Despite rescue efforts, numerous people remain missing, and people have also drowned in Austria, Poland, and Romania.

“It destroyed everything. I don't have anything left,” an elderly Romanian woman said in an already impoverished area. “The beds are filled with mud, the pillows are filled. I have nowhere to sleep. There is nothing, nothing, nothing.” 

In the northwest of neighboring Hungary, the government deployed more than 350 soldiers to reinforce flood barriers as the Danube and rivers along its way are expected to surge, including in the capital, Budapest.

There is debate about what caused the impact of flooding on populations in central and eastern Europe. Several scientists blame climate change, while other experts also blame extensive construction near rivers and a lack of adequate water management for the unfolding drama.