Storm Boris lashes large parts of Central, Eastern Europe ...
In pictures: Storm Boris brings heavy floods to central, eastern Europe
At least one person died in Poland and another in Austria, authorities said on Sunday, as Storm Boris brought some of the heaviest rains in years to central and eastern Europe. The storm has already caused the deaths of at least five people in Romania, four are reported missing in the Czech Republic and thousands have been evacuated from their homes across the continent.
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Since Thursday, swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have been hit by high winds and unusually fierce rains.
"We have the first confirmed death by drowning, in the Klodzko region" on the Polish-Czech border, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday morning.
Around 1,600 people have been evacuated in Klodzko, and Polish authorities have called in the army to support firefighters on the scene.
On Saturday, Polish authorities shut the Golkowice border crossing with the Czech Republic after a river flooded its banks, as well as closing several roads and halting trains on the line linking the towns of Prudnik and Nysa.
"Water is the most powerful force of nature. Everyone is scared," Owsiaka, 65, told AFP.
In the Czech Republic, police reported four people were missing Sunday.
Romanian deaths
"We are again facing the effects of climate change, which are increasingly present on the European continent, with dramatic consequences," Romania's President Klaus Iohannis said.
Hundreds of people have been rescued across 19 parts of the country, emergency services said, releasing a video of flooded homes in a village by the Danube river.
Parts of northeast Austria have been declared a natural disaster area.
Some areas of the Tyrol were blanketed by up to a metre (three feet) of snow -- an exceptional situation for mid-September, which saw temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) last week.
Rail services were suspended in the country's east early Sunday and several metro lines were shut down in the capital Vienna, where the Wien river was threatening to overflow its banks, according to the APA news agency.
Emergency services had made nearly 5,000 interventions overnight in the state of Lower Austria, where flooding had trapped many residents in their homes.
Neighbouring Slovakia has declared a state of emergency in the capital, Bratislava.
Heavy rains are expected to continue until at least Monday in the Czech Republic and Poland.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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