(Vatican Radio) The Danube River has spilled over its banks in Budapest, claiming
the Hungarian capital as the latest victim of record floods in Central and Eastern
Europe that has killed at least 21 people.
Authorities are still trying to
prevent large scale flooding here. But one of Europe's main waterways has already
reached nearly nine meters in Budapest, just 30 centimeters below the highest flood
defenses in this city of some 1.8 million people.
Near Bathany Square,
the Danube moves through sandbags and police have cordoned off the area.
Hotels
have been evacuated on nearby Margaret Island; several roads and homes are under water.
For local resident 67-year-old Ferenc Braustatart, it's difficult to watch.
SHOCKED
RESIDENT "I planned to do my usual morning walk, but was shocked to see the
rising water," he said. While looking at the river and flooded embankments, he concluded:
"I don't think I will ever see this again for the rest of my life."
In Hungary,
more than 2,000 people from 34 towns and villages have been forced to leave their
homes and 44 roads have been closed due to the floods.
There have been
complaints, even from within the police, that the government is relying too much on
up to eight million sandbags, but have not done enough to improve infrastructure.
One policeman even accused politicians of using the money spent on sandbags
to add to their own bank accounts.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
planned to ask Parliament to extend the state of emergency amid concerns that rain
expected in the next few days will add to more misery.
MASSIVE FLOODING Orbán
was to meet legislators in the Parliament building, where the Danube seems to have
reached the staircases.
Hungary has anxiously watched massive flooding
in other central European nations as an unusually wet spring has swollen the Danube,
the Elbe and several of their tributaries across Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany
and Hungary.
It has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, disrupting
rail and road traffic, and causing damage that preliminary estimates have predicted
will reach several billion dollars.
In the eastern German city of Magdeburg,
the Elbe rose faster and higher than expected to nearly seven and a half meters, prompting
the evacuation of more than 23,000 people.
In Hungary, some 7,000 soldiers,
supported by several thousand volunteers, try to reinforce dikes along the river,
though several thousand people have been forced to leave their homes.
This
could not have come at a worse time for Hungary, which is also struggling to keep
its economy afloat and prevent more international bailouts.