By Kuba Stezycki, Janis Laizans and Radovan Stoklasa
WROCLAW, Poland/OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (Reuters) -Volunteers and emergency workers raced to secure river banks in Poland's historic city of Wroclaw on Tuesday, as nearby municipalities advised residents to evacuate and authorities across central Europe tallied the cost of floods that have wreaked havoc and killed at least 22 people.
The deluge has left a trail of destruction from Romania to Poland. While waters were receding in many areas, others were nervously waiting for rivers to burst their banks.
Areas along the Czech-Polish border were among the worst-hit since the weekend, as gushing, debris-filled rivers devastated historic towns, collapsing bridges and destroying houses.
Flooding has killed seven people in Romania, where waters have receded since the weekend. Seven were dead in Poland, five in Austria, and three in the Czech Republic. Tens of thousands of Czech and Polish households remained without power or fresh water.
Wroclaw, Poland's third-largest city, prepared for peaking water along the Oder and Bystrzyca rivers.
Authorities in the Katy Wroclawskie district, southwest of Wroclaw, recommended that residents of several of the district's municipalities evacuate.
In a northern suburb, 44-year-old IT programmer Michal Nakiewicz was among dozens of volunteers helping emergency services pile up sandbags on the bank of the Bystrzyca.
"I saw that both parents and children were helping to pour sand. I even saw 5-, 6-year olds, so quite a gathering," he said. "Every pair of hands helps."
Wroclaw zoo called for volunteers to help pack sandbags to protect animal enclosures, while employees and volunteers began to move some of the 450,000 books from the city's main church archive to higher floors of the Archdiocesan Archives building.
In Lewin Brzeski, around 60 km (37 miles) south of Wroclaw, flood waters had already arrived and continued to rise.
Residents waded through waist-high water in some places, while emergency services boats moved others to safety through flooded streets.
Marek Karas, 63, said the authorities should have done more to protect the area since a severe deluge in 1997.
"In 27 years they haven't done much in this section."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said coming days would be critical.
"These are the most important ones ahead of us, you know, the most important two, three days," Tusk said during a meeting of the flood crisis team in Wroclaw. He also said that the government at the moment had 2 billion zlotys ($520 million) available for its efforts
'COMBAT CONDITIONS'
Overnight, volunteers helped rescue workers heave sandbags to build up the broken embankment around Nysa, a city of more than 40,000 in southwestern Poland.
Some residents returned to check their homes after evacuations on Monday, despite Tusk's assurances that authorities would act "ruthlessly" against looters.
"We are already hearing that looters have become active," Nysa resident Sabina Jakubowska, 45, told Reuters.
In neighbouring Czech Republic, Governor Josef Belica said 15,000 people had been evacuated in the northeastern Moravia-Silesia region, one of two badly affected. Helicopters were delivering aid to areas cut off by floodwaters.
Michal Marianek, director of an old people's home in the regional capital Ostrava, told Reuters staff had moved residents to a higher floor for two nights and cared for them without electricity.
"In those combat conditions we managed, provisional menus and so on," he said.
Credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS estimated losses from flooding across central Europe could exceed 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).
Belica said damage in his region alone would reach tens of billions of crowns (over $1 billion). The Czech Insurance Association said the first estimate of the cost of flood damage on insured property was 17 billion crowns ($753 million).
In Hungary, in the towns of Visegrad and Szentendre, north of Budapest, authorities have deployed mobile dams to limit flooding from the Danube.
Budapest is preparing for waters peaking near record levels, and has closed Margaret Island, a recreational area with hotels and restaurants.
In Slovakia, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said the Danube had peaked at nearly 10 m (32.81 ft)overnight and water levels would now slowly fall. He said damage caused by floods throughout the country was estimated at 20 million euros.
($1 = 3.8432 zlotys)