A stabilised flooding situation, with water-levels falling in all streams in Slovakia since the evening of June 5, is being used by the Slovak Water Management Company (SVP) and its employees to clean up the significant damage, the TASR newswire reported.

According to Ľuboš Krno, spokesman of SVP in Banská Štiavnica, the work mainly involves blocking holes in dams and strengthening them, bolstering river banks with stones, clearing river beds so that water can flow without obstacles and the removal of silt. Krno said for the TASR wrote that SVP employees have started looking into the extent of the damage caused by the floods so they can submit a report to the state authorities as soon as possible.

The situation in Košice region is stabilised with water levels dropping everywhere. The fire brigade was forced to intervene at several places in the region over the weekend, however, evacuating several people from Nižná Myšľa whose houses were flooded. In Sady nad Torysou, a dam overflowed and several houses were flooded as a result. More than 50 people had to be evacuated and the fire brigade had to remove fallen trees from under a bridge.

A dam was also leaking in Čaňa, and the fire brigade pumped water from houses as well as from a football field. Hot water supplies in Košice were cut off on June 5, with 10,000 families also left without electricity, Economy Minister Ľubomír Jahnátek told journalists. The minister noted that a 110-kilovolt switching station was taken out of operation after part of it was flooded in the morning. At first, the electricity cut affected as many as 130,000 people, but technicians later managed to restore supplies to several parts of the city, said Jahnátek.

The Žitava River in Nitra region was much calmer on Sunday, June 6, said Igor Sadovský, mayor of the village of Manňa. “We've dug through the dams and the water started flowing away from the flooded areas, water-levels are dropping”, he told TASR on Sunday, adding that it wasn't possible to pump water from houses because the ground water-level was too high. “The situation has stabilised and now we're counting the damage,” he said.

Mayor of Nižná Myšľa, Marián Karvanský, ordered the evacuation of people living near the Hornád River on Saturday morning due to rising water-levels caused by releases from the Ružín dam. In Nižná Mysšľa, massive erosion damaged dozens of houses on Friday, leaving many people homeless. Around 500 evacuated people from the town of Stará Ľubovňa (Prešov region) were allowed to return to their homes as the water-level on the Poprad River in this area dropped by 90 centimetres overnight. The situation in Kežmarok (Prešov region) area has stabilised, though some villages have been cut off, however, and could not be assessed.

The Danube River in the Bratislava borough of Devín reached its highest point at over 800 centimetres on Saturday, TASR was told by Peter Minárik from the Bratislava branch of the Slovak Water Management Company. As far as the lower section of the Danube is concerned, Minárik told TASR that mobile barriers have been also installed in the town of Štúrovo (Nitra region). According to the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMÚ), the level of the Danube reached 833 centimetres in Bratislava and 789 centimetres in Devín at 18:00 on Saturday, and both stations announced a second-degree flood alert. Meanwhile, a third-degree flood alert was announced on the Morava River in Kopčany, Moravský Svätý Ján (Trnava region) and Záhorská Ves (Bratislava region).

On Sunday, June 6, a body of a man who was probably another victim of the floods was found in the southern-Slovak town of Fiľakovo, near the border with Hungary, the ČTK newswire wrote. Altogether the death toll seems to amount to three people, as Prime Minister Fico said on June 5, but additional people are missing in various parts of Slovakia.

Source: TASR, ČTK

Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.