BUCHAREST: The swollen Danube river burst several waterlogged dikes in Romania yesterday, swamping new villages and forcing hundreds more people to leave their homes, officials said. Europe’s second-longest river, which flows through a 1,000km stretch of Romania, has submerged vast tracts of land in central and southeastern Europe.
Water levels have started falling in several countries, but Romania is still battling cracks in strained flood defences in the Danube delta near the Black Sea and faces the risk of further flooding and evacuations.
Lefter Chirica, the government’s representative in the county of Tulcea, said: “580 people fled overnight from the village of Ostrov in the delta as high waters threatened their lives after several dikes collapsed.”
Extensive flooding over the past month has forced thousands of people living on the Danube’s flood plains out of their homes, including around 15,000 in Romania where about 100,000 hectares of farmland and pastures are submerged.
“The water flow is expected to remain high over the next 35 days and this is a permanent threat to defences and people,” Environment Minister Sulfina Barbu told state radio.
In Bulgaria, soldiers stacked sandbags in some areas but dikes have held up and no new evacuations were ordered.
Governments throughout the region have began assessing the damage, which could run into millions of euros.
The Danube has flooded 7,500 hectares of wheat throughout Bulgaria, less than one percent of the planted area, farm officials said. They added high Danube waters were preventing detailed damage estimates.
“Many fields have been turned into swamps. The committees that will estimate the damage are just starting work ... Our first job is to start disinfection in the affected areas,” said Elena Yaneva, spokeswoman of the disaster management ministry.
The Balkans are still reeling from devastating floods which killed scores of people and left thousands homeless last summer. The Danube originates in Germany and flows through or forms borders with 10 countries before emptying into the Black Sea.–Reuters |
