Cleanup continues after floods
Soldiers sent to affected regions as power is restored to most homes
Posted: August 18, 2010
By Bill Lehane - Staff Writer | Comments (0) | Post comment
Walter Novak
The Vltava River continued to rise after heavy hail and thunderstorms Aug. 15.
National and local authorities have been scrambling to pick up the pieces after the deadly floods in north Bohemia Aug. 7-8 that claimed five lives and caused billions of crowns in damage.
Many roads and some rail lines remain closed in the worst-hit regions of Liberec and Ústí, where thousands of homes were made uninhabitable by the deluge.
The Defense Ministry has sent more than 750 soldiers to Liberec and Ústí, where 14 temporary bridges are being built, spokesman Vladimír Lukovský told The Prague Post.
Lukovský said the soldiers were taking part in "rescue and damage removal operations," in response to requests from local crisis management teams.
While there is no single clear cause for the recent severe flooding in Central Europe, nor fires in Russia or flooding in Pakistan, some scientists are connecting them all to larger trends, like shifts in the jet stream - a fast-flowing air current occurring high in the atmosphere.
Tim Woollings, a fellow at the Department of Meteorology at the UK's Walker Institute, said the jet stream shifts cited in news reports as a contributor to the natural disasters in Russia and Pakistan are likely also responsible for heavy rains that led to flooding in Central Europe last week.
"It's definitely the same sort of thing," he said.
In July, a drought in Central and Eastern Europe was followed in August by torrential downpours that caused rivers to overflow. According to Woollings, the sort of unusually long periods of heat or rainfall that set up an area for droughts and flooding are usually caused by a jet stream staying in one place as opposed to changing week to week. The jet stream phenomenon itself is not the result of any sort of global warming or unnatural climate change, he said, and is in fact a regular occurrence that can be caused by changes in sea temperatures or atmospheric conditions.
"Climate change is a kind of background to what happens with the weather," Woollings said. "So if it's warmer in general because of climate change, and on top of that we have this weather pattern that leads to a drought, then that background heat will make that drought a bit worse."
Another component in the severity of the floods, according to Martin Braniš, professor of environmental science at Charles University's Institute for Environmental Studies, could be the changes in land use over the past 100 years. Brandiš said that while a lack of comprehensive studies makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause, evidence shows flooding is increasing in frequency and severity, and that changes in land alter the way the earth absorbs rain.
"We can speak about changes in the landscape, not just in Central Europe, but around the world," Braniš said. "We would need one or two more floods like this year's or one like eight years ago to put the pressure on us. People think this flood is exceptional, and that it won't [happen again]. But it might."
- Cat Contiguglia
"At present, there are 743 soldiers in action as well as 190 machines, such as excavators, to clean the river basins," Lukovský said.
The Army has been cleared by the government to send up to 1,000 soldiers to aid the flood relief effort between now and September.
The city of Ústí nad Labem was hit by further flooding Aug. 13, where waterlogged ground could not soak up any more rainwater. Authorities reported extensive damage.
Prague, meanwhile, was hit with hail and thunderstorms Aug. 15, with six people injured in the heavy rains that struck the capital during the evening.
Rescue services said one man was seriously hurt when glass from a broken window fell on him and cut an artery in his leg. Another man suffered a head injury, and four women were treated after falling in the heavy rains.
Firefighters had to drain water from a hall of Můstek metro station on Wenceslas Square, as well as clear trees and branches from city streets.
The fifth victim of the deadly floods in north Bohemia was confirmed Aug. 11, when rescue workers found the body of a 50-year-old woman who had fallen into the Smedá River near the town of Frýdlant four days earlier. Another three residents of Frýdlant were thought to be still missing.
Some 900 flood victims have applied for the relief payments of up to 46,000 Kč available to those in material need over the crisis, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported Aug. 12. In the Liberec region - where the local state of emergency has been extended to Sept. 5 - four cases of infectious diarrhea were discovered, prompting increased sanitation efforts.
Meanwhile, the disaster forced Škoda Auto to shut down production at its Mladá Boleslav plant and to limit operations at its Vrchlabi and Kvasiny factories Aug. 12.
Grupo Antolin Bohemia - a key supplier of parts to the major automaker - saw its Chrastava plant flooded, with no date for restarting production in sight.
Škoda Auto said it would lose out on producing at least 2,600 cars because of the closure. The automaker aimed to restart operations Aug. 16 but said it might not be able to do so if Grupo Antolin's problems continued.
Czechs have been donating their money and time to help their flood-struck fellow citizens. People in Need, ADRA, the Czech Catholic Charity and the Red Cross said Aug. 14 that together they had raised 20 million Kč from their flood donation appeals. Many people have been giving up their holiday time to help with the cleanup, the charities added.
The government boosted its contribution to the relief efforts by 350 million Kč, Prime Minister Petr Nečas announced Aug. 11. The move came two days after the government released an initial 50 million Kč in aid after the crisis broke.
Power has been gradually restored to most of the 4,000 homes that lost electricity or gas supply in the wake of the floods. Technicians from energy suppliers RWE and ČEZ worked around the clock to return service to flood-hit homes, although 500 houses were still without power Aug. 15.
Agriculture Minister Ivan Fuksa has meanwhile urged against investing money in restoring houses to areas frequently hit by floods.
Speaking on a visit to Liberec Aug. 11, Fuksa told reporters that state and local authorities should instead build new housing on land farther from rivers.
He suggested the Czech Land Fund give private citizens the same opportunity, pointing out that in Germany and Austria state authorities swap new plots of land in exchange for land in flood-risk areas.
- Filip Šenk contributed to this report.
Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com
keywords: floods, north Bohemia, emergency, soldiers, Liberec, weather, flood, czech, czech floods, liberec, bohemia.
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