Poland battles rising flood waters

Deutsche Welle: Flooding in Poland has killed 12 people in the past week and continues to wreak havoc as the river running through the capitol burst through the riverbank on Monday. The Vistula River spewed over the riverbanks in a nonresidential area of Warsaw, flooding 18 Polish communities about 100 kilometers northwest of the Polish capitol. Emergency workers and residents erected sandbags and deposited debris to try to stop the flow of water.

The situation is worse than expected, said Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller. An area of 8,000 hectares was underwater, according to the PAP news agency, forcing the evacuation of 4,000 people and 5,000 animals. In the worst case scenario, the residents of neighboring Gabin and Slubice- about 10,000 people total-would have to be evacuated.

In Plock, a city in central Poland, water began seeping through some 50 meters of a flood barrier, forcing the evacuation of 160 residents. The nearby village of Swiniary was flooded, with water rising nearly to the rooftops, according to a report from broadcaster TVN 24. City officials have alerted those in high-risk areas that they should be ready to evacuate on a moment's notice; however, many people want to remain in their homes as long as possible, fearing robbers…..

Flood on the Vistula in 2004, near Warsaw, shot by pl:Wikipedysta:Flegi , Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License