Floods in Europe force entire city to evacuate, fires sweep Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal
CNN
—

Large swathes of Europe have been hit by deadly extreme weather, with rivers threatening to burst their banks in central Europe following heavy rain and wildfires raging in Portugal.

Seven people have died in fires that have raged in Portugal since Sunday, including three firefighters whose car caught fire on Tuesday. At least 17 people have died in what authorities are calling the worst flooding to hit central and eastern Europe in decades.

The mayor of Nysa, Poland, has ordered the evacuation of all 44,000 residents after water levels in the city’s river rose, threatening to send more flooding through its neighbourhoods.

Grzegorz Grochowski from Nysa recounted how rescuers and residents carried sandbags to the riverbank, working through the night and into the early hours of Tuesday morning to make sure its banks did not collapse.

“There was a human chain here and people were passing sandbags to each other. The helicopter was also carrying sand in big bags and they were dropping it to reinforce the wall all night until about 4 or 5 a.m.,” Grochowski told Reuters on Tuesday.

Patients, including pregnant women, were evacuated from the city hospital after rising floodwaters forced it to close before all residents of Nysa were asked to leave. Only rescuers and those trying to stem the flow of the river remained.

The rain is expected to ease until Tuesday, but officials have warned that river levels remain dangerously high and threaten to flood low-lying urban areas.

Heavy rain has moved into parts of northern and eastern Italy, where an orange warning for rainfall was issued on Tuesday.

Along the Polish border with the Czech Republic, emergency services carried out several rescue operations using helicopters in the town of Ladek-Zdrój after residents became trapped in their homes.

Floodwaters there are finally receding after days of heavy rain that caused extensive damage to rural villages. In the town of Jeseník, residents used to welcoming visitors to its famous spas are instead battling torrents of dirty water.

Flooding has affected the border between the Czech Republic and Poland, extending as far as the city of Ostrava, where thousands of residents were left without hot water on Monday. Operators of the region’s main heating plant have ordered a complete shutdown.

Wildfires across Portugal have forced authorities to close highways and expressways, disrupting travel across the country, the Portuguese Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

The ministry said the fires, which broke out near six highways, forced authorities to close them, including the main road linking the capital Lisbon to the country’s second-largest city, Porto. In total, 19 major roads were cut off due to their proximity to the fires.

Portugal’s civil protection agency said more than 5,000 firefighters were battling wildfires on Tuesday, with nearly two dozen major rural blazes active across the country.

CNN affiliate CNN Portugal reported Tuesday that civilians were evacuated from their homes and schools were closed in some areas, while large parts of the country remained under a yellow alert for the risk of fires.

Huge plumes of smoke from wildfires can be seen from space, according to the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. (EUMETSAT) said Tuesday.

A spokesman for Portugal’s civil protection agency said the weather was hampering firefighting efforts, as humidity remained low overnight. Firefighters typically rely on cooler night-time temperatures and higher humidity to help them tackle blazes, but dry conditions have made the fires spread further.

CNN Weather’s Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.