Thousands of soldiers and rescue workers battled yesterday with the worst floods Germany has seen for a century amid fears that badly weakened dykes along the Oder river could break during the night. After a week and a half of flooding, which has claimed over 100 lives in Poland and the Czech Republic, the swollen river yesterday pushed water levels in the eastern German city of Frankfurtan-der-Oder to a record 6.57 metres, just a few centimetres below the capacity of the dykes.
An estimated 19,000 people have been told to leave their homes along the Oder, which marks the border between Germany and Poland, as rescue workers admit they are fighting a losing battle against the flood.
"We are preparing the entire Oderbruch region for a possible evacuation," said Mr Ralph Leidenheimer, a spokesman for the Brandenburg interior ministry. "There is an acute danger that the dyke could break."
A number of villages have already been abandoned and the authorities fear that many of the dykes, which are as much as 250 years old, are too weak to survive the next big wave of flooding, which is expected on Wednesday.
Soldiers and volunteers piled up sandbags and shovelled gravel in an attempt to protect property from flood damage while army helicopters circled overhead.
Police patrol evacuated areas to prevent looting but there have been no reports of crime so far.
The floods, which are expected to continue for at least a week, have already caused billions of pounds worth of damage. Many of the victims had neglected to insure their property and, although the government is providing emergency accommodation for those who need it, it is offering house-owners rebuilding loans rather than compensation.
The federal government has made DM20 million (£7.1 million) available for emergency aid and hundreds of thousands of Germans have contributed to televised aid appeals.
Scientists warned yesterday that the floods could cause environmental damage, sweeping pollutants along the river from industrial regions in Poland and the Czech Republic. Experts fear that metal particles could be carried as far as the Baltic Sea.
Some families have been refusing to leave their homes in endangered areas, and Brandenburg's Interior Minister, Mr Alvin Ziel, repeated his warning against underestimating the scale of the danger. "Anybody who thinks it won't get really bad is risking his life," he said.
Rising water levels have persuaded most people that it is time to go, but some complain that the authorities panicked too early and ordered them out of their homes before they had time to salvage their possessions.
