Warsaw braces for flood, Slovakia and Hungary reel

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: Warsaw braced Monday for a new flood crest on the mighty Vistula river, as Budapest sandbagged its tourist quarter against the swollen Danube and Slovakia reeled from its worst flood in centuries. Heavy rains pounding central and eastern Europe have broken defences all along the Vistula, Poland's largest river which winds from the mountainous south to the Baltic Sea in the north, causing weeks of flooding.

The crest, or high point of the flood, is moving north and is forecast to surge into the Polish capital in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after a first giant wave washed through the capital. "The second large wave will arrive in Warsaw around 0300 CET (0100 GMT) at 7.8 metres (8.5 yards)," Mieczyslaw Ostojski, head of the IMGW weather institute, told reporters.

Warsaw officials launched a new alert for the city of two million, which was spared serious damage from the flood in May….

This image, taken by astronauts on-board the International Space Station, shows widespread flooding along the Vistula River in south-eastern Poland. Several towns have been completely or partially inundated including Gorzyce, Sokolniki, and Trześń in addition to large numbers of agricultural fields (normally green as visible at image top and bottom right).