Flood waters began to recede at last along the swollen Oder river yesterday in the first glimmer of hope for rescue workers in more than two weeks of a tense battle against disaster.
Authorities warned that the situation remained critical as they worked non-stop to bolster fragile dykes protecting an area of eastern Germany from being swamped, but the first signs of relief were evident.
"We are entering the final phase," said Mr Michael Muth, director of a crisis centre set up by Brandenburg regional authorities.
In Ratzdorf, the first German town on the Oder, troops began clearing sandbags from houses and a second line of defence behind the dykes because the water level was "no longer so threatening", a local official said.
The river level fell overnight along the entire stretch of the Oder bordering Germany and Poland, although mostly only by a few centimetres.
The crisis committee said flood alerts remained in force because the situation remained critical and the water must fall at least another metre before the danger passed.
For the first time in a week there were no overnight reports of damage to the dykes, although soldiers and civilians still worked non-stop to repair cracks and plug leaks.
"We are still in a critical but stable situation. There is still no question of lifting the emergency," a committee spokesman said.
The most threatened areas continued to be around Hohenwutzen, Neuruednitz and Altglietzen to the north of the Oderbruch region, and at Reitwein to the south.
The Oderbruch is a swathe of farmland known as Berlin's vegetable garden. It lies largely below the Oder's normal level, and if the dykes break, most of it would be immediately submerged. Even there, however, the river fell several centimetres.
Nearly 3,000 people in the Oderbruch have already been forced to abandon their homes and nearly 20,000 others have been told to leave or put on evacuation alert.
President Roman Herzog will visit the stricken region this week.
Meanwhile a meeting between the Brandenburg interior minister, Mr Alwin Ziel, and the Polish Interior Minister, Mr Leszek Miller in Slubice, across from Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, was called off after fog prevented Mr Miller's helicopter leaving Warsaw.
The floods, the worst in living memory to hit this part of central Europe, have affected Poland and the Czech Republic much worse than Germany, leaving more than 100 people dead in those two countries.