LISBON — Swaths of Europe have been battered by deadly extreme weather, as rivers threaten to burst their banks in central Europe following torrential rainfall, and wildfires tear through Portugal.
Seven people have now died in fires in Portugal since Sunday, including three firefighters, whose vehicle burst into flames on Tuesday. At least 17 have been killed in what authorities have called the worst floods to hit central and eastern Europe in decades.
The mayor of Nysa in Poland ordered the evacuation of all 44,000 residents as water levels in the city’s river rose and threatened to send more floods through its neighborhoods.
Grzegorz Grochowski from Nysa recounted how rescuers and residents ferried sandbags down to the river embankment, working through the night into the early hours of Tuesday morning to ensure it didn’t break its banks.
“There was a human chain here, people were passing on sandbags to each other,” Grochowski told Reuters on Tuesday. “The helicopter was also carrying sand in big bags and they were dropping it to enforce the wall throughout the night until around 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning.”
Patients, including pregnant women, were evacuated from the city’s hospital after surging floodwaters forced it to shut down before all of Nysa’s residents were told to leave. Just rescuers and those trying to stem the flow from the river remain.
The rainfall is expected to calm through Tuesday, but officials have warned that water levels in rivers remain dangerously high and risk flooding low-lying urban areas.
The heaviest rains have shifted to parts of northern and eastern Italy, where an orange rainfall warning is in place Tuesday.
Along Poland’s border with the Czech Republic, emergency services have carried out several helicopter rescues in the town of Ladek Zdrój after residents became trapped in their homes.
Floodwaters there have finally begun to recede after days of downpours caused extensive damage to rural villages. In the town of Jesenik, residents more used to welcoming visitors to its famed spa resorts have instead been grappling with torrents of dirty water.
Flooding has impacted the breadth of Czech-Polish border, stretching as far down as the city of Ostrava, where thousands of residents were left without hot water on Monday. The operators of the region’s main heating plant ordered a complete shutdown.
Wildfires across Portugal forced authorities to close highways and roads, disrupting travel throughout the country, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
Blazes close to six highways have forced them to shut, the ministry said, including the country’s main link between the capital Lisbon and its second largest city Porto. In total, 19 large roads have been cut off because of their proximity to the flames.
More than 5,000 firefighters are battling wildfires on Tuesday, as nearly two dozen large, rural fires are active across the country, the Portuguese Civil Protection Agency has said.
Civilians have been evacuated from their homes and schools have also been closed in some areas, CNN Portugal, a CNN affiliate, reported Tuesday, as much of the country remains under a yellow alert for risk of fire.
Huge plumes of smoke from the wildfires can be seen from space, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) said Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Portugal’s Civil Protection said that the weather is hampering firefighting efforts, as overnight humidity remained low. Firefighters usually rely on lower nighttime temperatures and higher humidity to help them tackle the blazes, but the dry weather conditions have caused the fires to spread further. — CNN
