Central Europe is facing its worst floods in years

Sandbags are being prepared in Austria, dams have been emptied in the Czech Republic and flooding is expected in Poland, as forecasters warn of days of “potentially catastrophic” rain.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there was “no reason to panic”, after attending a flood risk briefing in Wroclaw, amid forecasts of 15cm (6in) of rain in four southern provinces.

In In Austria, heavy rain and snow in the mountains have already led to travel disruptions and Councilor Karl Nehammer said the army is ready to deploy up to 1,000 soldiers if necessary.

I Czech the capital is not taking a chance, after the floods that destroyed the city twenty years ago.

Images from 2002 of flooded municipal stations, residents being evacuated in rubber boats and drowning elephants at the Prague Zoo are etched in local memory.

Shortly before 10:00 (08:00 GMT) on Friday, a heavy metal gate, one meter thick, closed what is called the Devil’s Canal or Certovkaa stretch of water that cuts through Prague’s historic Mala Strana district before rejoining the Vltava River.

The Certovka gate is part of a national network of flood defenses which officials say has cost more than €1bn (£845m) to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic damage of 1997 and 2002.

in Prague hoping to escape the worst of the flood. Attention is focused this weekend on the central and eastern parts of the country, especially North Moravia, where 50 people lost their lives in 1997.

The Jeseniky Mountains could receive 400mm over the next three days, and that water will flow down the Oder River (Order in Czech) continued towards Poland, passing many towns and villages along the way.

After attending an emergency briefing in south-west Poland, Donald Tusk tried to reassure the public that the forecasts were “not overly alarming” and there was no reason to predict something on a scale that could pose a threat to the whole country.

in Poland the country’s army was waiting, he said, and in one of the four southern districts, Malopolskaan estimated two million sandbags had been collected, and millions more were found in Lower Silesia, a province near Wroclaw.

“If there is anything that can be expected, and this is what we want to prepare for, it is local flooding or so-called flooding,” he added.

Thousands of residents had to use the stairs of their high-rise apartments in Wroclaw, because the elevators were closed due to flooding, local media reported.

The Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management later extended the highest warning level from four southern provinces to the mouth of the Odra River in Szczecin, where it empties into the Baltic Sea.

In Austria it had the hottest August since records began, according to government agency Geosphere Austria.

It is now warning of 10-20cm of rain in many places over the next few days. In some places, more than 20cm is possible, especially in the mountains of Upper and lower Austria and northern Upper Styria.

Austria’s storm warning center UWZ says in some places, previous records for the entire month of September “will be surpassed in just a few days”.

Manuel Kelemen, Puls24 TV forecaster, says that from a statistical point of view, “what we are experiencing is amazing, if it has never happened before”.

The rail network OEBB has advised all passengers to postpone non-urgent journeys. The section of the Tauern railway between Bad Hofgastein and Böckstein in the province of Salzburg is closed due to snowfall.

Flooding and landslides are possible, as a strong storm is expected in the capital, Vienna. Aid organization Caritas has called for volunteers to help in the affected areas.

Continued heavy rain is also expected across the border in the German state of In Bavaria.

This is a regional emergency, not a national one, with a large area of ​​Central Europe affected.

But a reminder of national priorities came earlier this week when Czech officials said they were forced to reject a German request to stop emptying reservoirs on the Vltava River, which flows into the Elbe River (The label in Czech) continued to Germany, after the collapse of the bridge in Dresden.

Those dams – a series of nine dams known as The Vltava Cascade – he will need to be empty handed to take on this weekend’s expectations.