Polish floods threaten Warsaw

Hundreds of people have had to be evacuated

SKAWINKI, Poland -- Another 1,800 Polish villagers have been evacuated as the floodwater that has swamped much of the south of the country overwhelmed dikes as it surged downstream, emergency services said.

Some 25 people have been killed by the floods and violent storms in Poland this month, including 12 since the situation worsened in the south last week.

Thousands have been forced out of their homes.

In the latest rescue operation, people were moved by boat, bus and private car from six villages flooded after the Vistula river broke a 40-meter (-yard) hole in saturated dikes in Zalesie Gorzyckie and a tributary broke out near Zlota, about 210 kilometers (130 miles) south of Warsaw.

No one was hurt, said Stanislaw Gacek, fire chief in the nearby city of Sandomierz, though some 50 houses were flooded and the region's main railway tracks were damaged.

More than 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of farmland were hidden under murky brown water.

Some 3,000 people were evacuated on Saturday from Sandomierz, which so far has escaped inundation.

About 1,000 firefighters and soldiers were helping local residents to strengthen dikes with sandbags.

Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek visited the area on Sunday and was met by angry residents.

"Where is the money that you collect from us in tax and for water control?" a woman screamed at him in flooded Trzesnia, according to Polish news agency PAP.

Buzek, who already pledged immediate aid to the victims, said they may also need counselling to cope with their losses.

Gacek warned that the wave of floodwater moving downstream was bigger than in the disastrous 1997 flood and that rivers might breach their banks in other places. But he said the work on the dikes should mean fewer leaks.

The floodwater is expected to reach Warsaw by Monday night, but not to cause serious damage.

Storms and torrential rains have swept across Poland since July 10., flooding property in the Baltic port city of Gdansk and sweeping away houses in southern Poland.

The floods are the worst since the summer of 1997, when storms and rampaging rivers swamped 46,000 homes, killed 55 people and caused an estimated $3.4 billion in damage.