Death toll rises as storm lashes central, eastern Europe

(ANSA-AFP) - GLUCHOLAZY, SEP 16 - One person has drowned in Poland and an Austrian fireman has died responding to floods, authorities said Sunday, as Storm Boris lashed central and eastern Europe with torrential rains. Since Thursday, swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have been hit by high winds and unusually heavy rainfall. The rains have flooded streets and submerged entire neighbourhoods in some places, while shutting down public transport and electricity in others. Romanians waded through armpit-high water to safety, Poles sought shelter in schools and Czechs hurriedly put up sand dykes in an effort to keep the water at bay. Sunday's deaths bring the overall toll from the storm to eight, with thousands evacuated across the continent. In Romania, two bodies were found on Sunday, after four people were reported killed earlier, and one person was declared missing. Four people were reported missing in the Czech Republic. "The water came into the house, it destroyed the walls, everything," Sofia Basalic, 60, a resident of Romania's village of Pechea, in the hard-hit region of Galati, told AFP. "It took the chickens, the rabbits, everything. It took the oven, the washing machine, the refrigerator. I have nothing left," she said. (ANSA-AFP).