Dyke collapses on flood workers

Flood defences remain under threat

TRZESN, Poland -- Twenty-five rescue workers were plunged into a swollen river after a dyke collapsed under them in Poland.

They were left struggling in deep water in the Vistula river on Tuesday after a 20-metre rupture opened up on an embankment near the village of Kamien. Colleagues in inflatable dinghies pulled them clear, said Reuters news agency.

About 25 people have been killed by weeks of floods and violent storms in Poland this month, including 12 since the situation worsened last week. Thousands have also been forced from their homes.

"The situation in Kamien last night was very serious -- it was one of the most dangerous since the floods began," fire service spokesman Witold Maziarz told Reuters on Tuesday.

VIDEO Authorities are evacuating thousands from a devasted region. (July 30) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Flood waters have been surging along the Vistula, Poland's largest river, since last week.

Four hundred houses in the village of Trzesn were flooded to top of the first floors after a dam broke at the weekend.

An army engineering battalion used boats and amphibious vehicles to ferry food and drinking water to stranded residents in the village, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of the capital Warsaw.

Some locals accused the authorities of deliberately blowing a hole in a dyke to save a nearby chemicals plant from flooding, said Reuters.

One evacuated woman, Cecylia Wujek, 36, clutching a small carrier bag, told Reuters. "These are my entire belongings after the flood. I have no idea what I am going to do with my two children. We have lost everything."

About 1,500 residents of the towns Kepa Gostecka and Kepa Solecka were evacuated on Monday after rising water first breached the Kamien dyke, soaked by Poland's highest river levels in four years.

The villages of Braciejowice, Zakrzew, Grabowiec and Las Debowy were then evacuated by bus and tractor after defences failed again at Kamien, 170 kilometres (105 miles) south-east of Warsaw.

Animals are evacuated in Sokolini in southern Poland

But Warsaw has been spared serious damage as a 100-kilometre flood wave surged through the city on Monday night without penetrating defences, city officials said.

The regional crisis centre in Warsaw said water levels in the city stopped rising on Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of people turned out overnight at a promenade on a dyke along the Vistula to see if defences would hold against the flood wave.

Student Agnieszka Gryncewicz, who lives just across the busy main street from the river, told The Associated Press: "I've never seen anything like this, this is unbelievable."

There had been fears that Warsaw zoo might have to be evacuated but zoo director Maciej Rembyszewski said its animals -- including a cheetah with five newborn cubs -- were safe.