Central Europe braces for heavy rains and flooding forecast over the weekend

PRAGUE (AP) — The nations of Central Europe were bracing on Friday for severe flooding forecast to hit the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary over the weekend.

Czech authorities were erecting metal barriers or protective walls from sandbags, while water was released from dams to make space in reservoirs. Residents have been warned to get ready for possible evacuations.

Some public events throughout the country that were planned for the weekend have been cancelled at the request of authorities, including soccer matches in the top two leagues.

“We have to be ready for the worst case scenarios,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said after a meeting of his government’s central crisis committee. “A tough weekend is ahead of us.”

Meteorologists say a low pressure system travelling from northern Italy was predicted to dump high levels of rainfalls in most parts of the Czech Republic, or Czechia, including the capital and border regions with Austria and Germany in the south and Poland in the north.

Central Europeans are especially wary because some experts have compared the weekend forecast to devastating floods in 1997 in the region, referred to by some as the flood of the century.

Over 100 people were killed in the floods 27 years ago, including 50 in the eastern Czech Republic where large sections of land was inundated.

The biggest rainfalls were predicted in the eastern half of the country, particularly in the Jeseniky mountains. The second largest city of Brno, located in eastern Czech Republic, is among places that have not had flooding protection work completed, unlike Prague.

Czechs were asked not to go to parks and woods as high winds up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour were forecast.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled Friday to the southwestern Polish city of Wrocław where floods are forecast. Authorities appealed to residents to stock up on food and to prepare for power outages by charging power banks.

Tusk, meeting with firefighters and other emergency officials, said the forecasts were “not excessively alarming.”

“There is no reason to panic, but there is a reason to be fully mobilized,” the prime minister stressed.

The German Weather Service issued warnings of heavy precipitation across swaths of the country, including the Alps, where heavy snowfall and strong winds are expected at higher altitudes.

The Alpine nation of Austria is also getting ready for heavy rains, and a massive cold front that is expected to bring snow to higher elevations.

The weather change arrived following a hot start to September in the region. Scientists have recorded Earth’s hottest summer on record, breaking a record set just one year ago.

A hotter atmosphere, driven by human-caused climate change, can lead to more intense rainfall.

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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera contributed from in Warsaw, Poland.