Raging Waters

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In Austria, which has seen the worst flooding since detailed records began in 1896, Vienna was largely spared thanks to a 20-km canal constructed parallel to the Danube to drain off floodwaters. But the rest of the country was inundated. The government said it would delay tax reforms to help fund an aid package currently put at T1 billion.

In lower Austria, the Danube broke through dikes near Ybbs, trapping more than 3,000 of the town's 5,800 residents in their homes. "Ybbs doesn't have adequate flood protection," says Mayor Anton Sierlinger, who has lived through the major floods of 1954 and 1991, "so it's afflicted again and again." And with each new deluge, the cost of the damage increases as the town extends farther along the banks of the Danube. But last week's destruction may make local officials rethink development plans, forcing people to give up homes and recreational areas along the river.

In Germany, where more than 100,000 people fled their homes, the floods have become a campaign issue that could boost the re-election chances of Chancellor Gerhard Schrder's party, which is trailing in the polls behind Edmund Stoiber's conservatives. With the election just four weeks away, the disaster gives Schrder a chance to shine on the national stage. Fritz Kuhn, co-chairman of the Greens, junior partner in the coalition government, blamed Stoiber for the damage in his home state of Bavaria, calling him an "ecological ignoramus who has flooded away climate protection."

As flood waters receded in most places, Minister of the Environment Jrgen Trittin talked up Germany's "ambitious" climate-protection program, saying the country had already met 80% of its target to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 21% by 2012. The government has so far allotted ?400 million to flood relief, including subsidized loans and direct payments to victims.

But that may not be enough. The Elbe peaked last Saturday in the heart of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, but the floodwaters continued toward the North Sea and inundated villages along the way. Lamented Saxony's premier, Georg Milbradt, "The flood disaster has destroyed a decade of reconstruction in some parts of the state."

At Dresden's Zwinger Palace, home to one of Europe's greatest collections of Baroque and Renaissance art, hundreds of rescuers worked partly by candlelight to move thousands of objects to higher levels as water flooded the cellars. Paintings that were too large to get through the doors were hung near the ceiling. When the Elbe reached its highest level in history, rescuers pulled out to work elsewhere — though they returned later to continue the effort.

The floods in Russia caused by far the most deaths — 59 so far — but garnered the least international attention. Tornadoes and violent rain ripped up what little infrastructure there was along the Black Sea coast around Novorossiysk. The worst-hit area was around Shirokaya Balka, one of the most popular vacation spots in the area. The death toll may be so high in part because the region's infrastructure is old and because local officials may have ignored building codes and safety ordinances. The local prosecutor's office has opened an investigation, and the resorts have also been officially quarantined until September. But many Russians seem happy to shrug off the danger. "At times, you can see a small boat with corpses fished out of the sea, while a few meters away a mother looks on as her kids romp in the water," the daily Kommersant wrote last week.

Russian scientists say last week's wild weather is not unusual for the region and is unrelated to global warming or the floods in Central Europe. "Sea tornadoes are a regular occurrence" around Novorossiysk, says Alexander Krenke, head of the Laboratory of Climatology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. "The real disaster is that it hit a village. If it had passed a kilometer away, no one would have realized it happened."
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