As soon as the floodwaters engulfing this small village 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Prague slowed, Father Jaroslav Stříž climbed into a rowboat and made his way to inspect the damage done to his Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary.

It looked as if it were in the middle of a large lake, water from the swollen Labe River surrounding it.

The Baroque church, which dates to 1725, is one of the hardest-hit national monuments in the past several weeks of floods.

Water inside the church, reaching as high as 1.5 meters (5 feet), destroyed its weathered, wooden pews and confession booths, and seriously damaged other furnishing and wall paintings.

The rest of Křešice did not fare much better. On March 31, more than half of the village's 1,352 inhabitants had to evacuate their homes. Electricity and gas supplies were shut down, sewers stopped working and the community entered a state of emergency.

The Army and local police guarded the village, where firemen on rafts tried to save what had been left.

Mayor Ludmila Juříková ended the state of emergency April 10, when people returned to their homes — many of which had been ruined — to begin the long process of washing away mud and memories.