Dresden's record flood yet to peak

Time is running out for Dresden residents to prepare against record floods

DRESDEN, Germany (CNN) -- The southern German city of Dresden continued its evacuation of residents and treasures as officials warned the river level had yet to reach its peak.

The Elbe, which has already smashed a 157-year record with highs of 9.3 metres (30.5 feet) on Friday, was predicted to rise a further 30 centimetres to crest at 9.6 (31.5 feet) metres on Saturday, the Dresden Emergency Centre said.

The river's previous record high mark was 8.76 metres (nearly 28.75 feet) set in 1845. Its normal level for this time of year is about two metres.

Government buildings, including the offices of Saxony's economics ministry, have fallen victim to the floods but the water is moving beyond the historic core, forcing rescuers to abandon the breached retaining walls they had built and to scramble back to set up new barriers against the teeming flow.

Tens of thousands of people have fled the historic town and art galleries and museums have tried to rescue great pieces of art works from the murky, muddy waters.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Michael Holmes looks at the battle the people of Dresden, Germany, are fighting to slow the rising Elba river (August 16) Play video CNN's Mike Hanna looks at the clean up process underway in Prague as pumps around the city attempt to extract remaining flood water (August 16) Play video   MORE STORIES • Dresden faces further threats  • Prague cleans up as threat continues  • Prague: Despair and solidarity  • Schroeder poll hopes buoyed  • Damage estimated at $7bn  • 'Darkest hours' for Austrians  • Animals among flood victims    EXTRA INFORMATION In-depth: Floods ravage Europe  Gallery: Images of flooding  Map: Severely hit areas    YOUR SAY • Are you hit by the floods? E-mail stories  and read responses   RESOURCES • Aid contacts  • Dresden weather      QUICKVOTE Are governments doing enough to reduce the impact of flooding? Yes No View Results

Ten people have died across the country while the figure for Europe as a whole is in three figures.

Along with Germany and the Czech Republic, flooding has hit communities in Austria, Slovakia, Russia, and Romania.

Officials said they feared more architectural gems of Dresden, destroyed by British and U.S. bombers in 1945 and only renovated in recent years, would soon be submerged.

The last four bridges still open in Dresden, which lies 200 km (120 miles) south of Berlin, were closed.

"This is the highest level that has ever been recorded in Dresden," the town's mayor, Ingolf Rossberg, told Reuters. He added that about a quarter of the town's population of 480,000 had been evacuated.

Efforts to prevent flooding of buildings around the city's central plaza, which includes the opera house and other historic structures, had to be abandoned as the water rose. Pumps that were spewing water out of basements were turned off and removed.

To help lower water levels, a railway bridge downstream from Dresden was demolished with explosives to open up a flood plain to reduce the flow in the main river channel, military officials said.

Throughout Thursday, citizens, police and troops worked together to set up a sandbag wall in the centre of the city as other workers rushed to rescue art treasures.

Dresden's Zwinger Palace, host to one of Europe's great art museums, was partially under water as volunteers moved thousands of pieces of artwork from the basement and ground floor to higher levels.

Similar activity was under way at Albertinum Museum, where officials took thousands of sculptures and Old Masters artworks to safe ground, but other works were too cumbersome to move and are now threatened. Many other galleries in the city are also in basements.

At the famed 19th-century Semper Opera in the old city, emergency crews gave up pumping water out of the basement on Friday as the dirty brown tide kept rising. Dresden's railway station resembled a swimming pool.

Hospitals were evacuated. Intensive care patients were airlifted to other hospitals and other patients were taken by ambulance.

The Elbe River at Dresden was being fed in part by floodwater coming from the Vltava River, which had earlier flooded the Czech capital of Prague, where the water level was continuing to fall on Friday. (Full story)

Emergency crews remained out in full force in Prague two days after it appeared the ancient Old Town would suffer the same fate as Mala Strana (Lesser Town), where several palaces and centuries old buildings were still under more than a metre (three feet) of water.

But the Vltava failed to breach the hastily erected defences, and water levels were down by Friday morning by more than two metres (six feet) from their peak.

Some of the 200,000-plus residents who were evacuated from their homes were allowed to return to several areas of the city that escaped the worst of the flooding, although in some cases just for a change of clothes.

German federal border police officers find an effective alternative mode of transport in Pirna, near Dresden

Across Saxony, the eastern German state where Dresden is located, authorities estimate damage to be at least €1 billion ($980 million). German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has promised millions in aid to flood-stricken parts of the country.

In Prague, city officials said it was difficult to estimate the cost of the damage until the water recedes completely -- at least another four days -- but indications show it will be at least 60 billion crowns ($2 billion).

The Czech government is to launch an appeal for international bank loans and aid, including a request for money from the European Union, which the Czech Republic hopes to join.

Downriver from Prague, a civilian was killed by shrapnel Thursday when Czech forces blew up runaway barges that threatened to slam into bridges. Eleven people have been killed in flood-related incidents in the Czech Republic.

In the Slovak capital Bratislava, the Danube reached its highest point in 50 years on Friday, but was expected to stay inside its banks. Officials in the Hungarian capital Budapest said they too were closely monitoring water levels on the Danube.

The flooding is being called the worst in a century in Austria, where thousands have been evacuated from the Salzburg and Upper Austria provinces. In Russia, at least 58 people in the Black Sea region were killed by flooding last week.

-- CNN's Gaven Morris, Jim Boulden and Mike Hanna contributed to this report

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