Floods hit Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland

Volunteers piled up sandbags to keep a swollen river from overwhelming the Czech capital's historic centre yesterday after floods across central Europe forced factories to close, drove thousands from their homes and killed at least seven people.

Five people were killed in the Czech Republic, where the flooding was the worst in a decade and a state of emergency was declared, while in Austria two people died and another two were missing.

The flooding also affected parts of Germany, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

Carmaker Volkswagen temporarily shut its plant in Zwickau, in the eastern German state of Saxony, because the flooding stopped workers reaching the factory, and parts of the German town of Passau, at the confluence of the Danube and two other rivers, were flooded.

The last time central Europe saw similar floods was in 2002, when 17 people were killed in the Czech Republic, and damage estimated at €20 billion (HK$200 billion) was inflicted.

Officials in Prague, listed by the UN cultural agency as a World Heritage Site, said they did not anticipate the waters of the swollen Vltava River that runs through the centre of the city would reach the 2002 levels. But they were not taking chances. They shut the metro system, and in streets near the river, soldiers put up mobile metal fences - flood defences that were ordered after the disaster 11 years ago.

Elsewhere, volunteers built walls of sandbags.