Floods Devastate Lewin Brzeski in Poland

Flood waters continued to rise in the Polish town of Lewin Brzeski, around 60 kilometers south of Wroclaw.

Townspeople waded through water that was up to their waist in some places, while others moved through the streets on rafts as emergency services took them to safety.

Firefighters and military personnel used amphibious vehicles, diggers, boats and dinghies to carry people out of the flooded areas.

Poland's Minister for Funds and Regional Development, Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, said $390.46 million from Poland's European Union funds would be redirected to reconstruction, with another $911.35 million potentially allocated to building embankments, reservoirs and dams.

The deluge has left a trail of destruction from Romania to Poland, and while waters were receding in many areas, others were nervously waiting for rivers to burst their banks.

The Czech-Polish border areas are among the worst-hit since the weekend, as gushing, debris-filled rivers devastated historic towns, collapsing bridges and destroying houses.

Polish authorities have filled 80% of a giant reservoir near the Czech border, aimed at cutting water levels and preventing flood peaks from coinciding on the Oder and Nysa Klodzka rivers, as happened in the disastrous 1997 floods in Wroclaw.

Townspeople waded through water that was up to their waists in some places, as elsewhere in central Europe residents counted the cost of floods that have wreaked havoc and killed at least 21 people.

The deluge has left a trail of destruction from Romania to Poland, and while waters were receding in many areas, others were nervously waiting for rivers to burst their banks.

In Lewin Brzeski, around 37 miles south of Wroclaw, flood waters had already arrived and continued to rise.

While volunteers and emergency workers raced to secure river banks along the Oder in Poland, for Lewin Brzeski it was too late, as the stricken town was completely under water.