(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).
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