* More deaths reported in Poland
* Rescue workers clear debris, help evacuees
By Rob Strybel
WARSAW, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Rescue workers sought to clear
flood-borne debris including damaged cars and evacuate victims
after heavy rains across central Europe killed at least nine
people over the weekend.
Heavy downpours on Saturday caused rivers to overflow their
banks and a dam to burst, submerging towns in the southwest
corner of Poland and killing at least three people, Polish
officials said on Sunday.
One woman drowned in the town of Bogatynia in Poland's
extreme southwest corner on Saturday. The body of another woman
and a 55-year-old rescuer swept away by a dam burst on Saturday
were found on Sunday, Fire Brigade spokesman Pawel Fratczak told
Reuters by telephone.
Flood damage and deaths were also reported in neighbouring
Germany and the Czech Republic, with six deaths.
"We had no warning. In less than an hour our town was
totally inundated up to the first floor, many houses collapsed
and we were cut off from the world," the mayor of Bogatynia,
Andrzej Grzmielewicz told news channel TVN24.
"We need amphibious vehicles and helicopters to help
evacuate at least 2,000 flood victims," he added, and called on
people from higher-lying areas to donate blankets and food for
the homeless.
ARMY ENGINEERS
The army has since moved in with heavy engineering equipment
and aircraft to evacuate flood victims and clear debris
including damaged cars blocking the town's narrow streets.
The rupture of a dam on a reservoir in nearby Niedow was
responsible for the speed of the water surge, and more rain
could lead to major chaos, Interior Minister Jerzy Miller
warned.
"In view of the dam burst, more heavy rains would mean that
we would be entirely unable to control the situation," he said.
For the time being weather forecasters in Poland do not
foresee further heavy downpours.
The weekend deluge followed major spring and summer flooding
across Poland which caused widespread property damage and
claimed some two dozen lives.
In Germany, authorities at the weekend evacuated some 1,400
people around the town of Goerlitz, on the border with Poland,
where they expected the flooding level to rise further after
already topping 7 metres (23 feet).
Television footage showed water gushing along a main road in
Goerlitz. Elsewhere in eastern Germany, flooding levels began to
ease. On Saturday, three people drowned in flooding in
Neukirchen, near the Czech border.
In the Czech Republic, the news agency CTK reported three
people had been killed by floods in the north of the country.
Extra rescue personnel and soldiers were called in to help
with evacuation from some of the worst affected towns, using
helicopters to reach villages cut off by the swollen rivers.
Storms and high winds left several regions in eastern
Slovakia with no electricity on Saturday, but no major damage,
casualties or injuries were reported.
(Reporting by Reuters staff in Warsaw, Berlin and Prague;
writing by Rob Strybel)
