Posted on 04/14/2006 12:37:55 PM PDT by Grzegorz 246
FETESTI, Romania (Reuters) - Romania will submerge thousands of hectares of farmland on the banks of the Danube to prevent the swollen river from flooding villages, Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said on Friday.
Soldiers stacked sandbags around towns as the water level in the river -- boosted by melting snow -- rose to its highest level in more than a century in some areas, flooding ports and villages on the southern bank of the river in Bulgaria.
Rising water levels have caused flooding or the threat of flooding in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia.
"We decided to pursue controlled flooding of farmland along the Danube to protect villagers who might be hit by rising waters," Tariceanu told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
He said the Danube could hit flow levels in the coming days not seen since 1895. The operation to submerge the farmland should begin within days, said a water department official.
About 90,000 hectares (222,400 acres) of fertile soil on a 400-km (250-mile) stretch of the river will be flooded. Wheat and maize are cultivated on the river's northern bank.
In the Danube town of Fetesti, soldiers stacked 50,000 sandbags to protect it from rising waters and emergency workers in small boats cut electric cables to prevent short-circuiting.
"If the water rises a few more centimetres I'll lose everything I fought for," said Paulina Clim, 44, whose courtyard was already submerged after a dam collapsed.
Environment Minister Sulfina Barbu said meteorologists said there could be heavy rain as early as Wednesday. So far, about 400 houses were flood and 500 people evacuated across Romania.
BULGARIA, HUNGARY, SERBIA
The Serbia government declared a state of emergency in six towns in the northern plains and in the east as rescue teams helped by the army reinforce embankments round the clock along the swelling Danube, Sava, Tamis and Tisa rivers.
One person drowned in Stari Kostolac village some 80km (50 miles) east of Belgrade where some 200 houses are flooded and people were being evacuated, state news agency Tanjug said.
In Bulgaria the government maintained a state of emergency along the river but said mass evacuation was not needed for now.
In the Danube town of Vidin, water levels rose to an all-time high of 9.5 metres (31 feet) and authorities feared some dikes might break under the pressure.
"The dikes are built to hold waters up to 10 metres and our biggest worry is that some of them may give in," said Anatolii Tsnov, head of the civil defence in Vidin.
More than 250 houses were flooded by rising groundwater in villages near the swollen river.
In Lom, home to 6,000 people, civil defence officials scrambled to build a dike -- the third new defensive barrier in as many days -- and people surrounded their homes with sandbags after the river flooded a port and administrative buildings.
The waters also swamped a large part of Nikopol, a town 250 km (155 miles) northeast Sofia, and authorities were preparing to evacuate the city's 4,000 inhabitants, the head of the local crisis headquarters Aidan Ismailov told state agency BTA.
In Hungary, the flood alert has been lowered on the Hungarian section of the Danube but its flooding to the south of the country has boosted the level of the tributary Tisza.
Authorities declared on Friday an emergency on much of the river Tisza, expected to rise to a record level next week, and prepared to evacuate up to 40 villages should dams burst.
I bet the Romanians are smart enough to get their school buses to higher ground first.
No mention of global warming associated with this article, so perhaps they had a heavier snowpack this winter than usual.
But that is proof of global warming as well!
Excellent point.
... lol ...
Funny but true...
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