Central Europe braced for worst flooding in years

Austrian storm warning centre UWZ says that in some areas, previous records for the entire month of September will be "surpassed in just a few days".

Manuel Kelemen, a forecaster for Puls24 TV, says from a meterological point of view, "what we're experiencing is extraordinary, if not unprecedented".

Railway network OEBB has advised all passengers to postpone non-urgent journeys. Part of the Tauern railway line between Bad Hofgastein and Böckstein in the province of Salzburg has been closed because of heavy snowfall.

Flooding and landslides are possible, with gale force winds expected in the capital, Vienna. Aid organisation Caritas has appealed for volunteers to help in affected areas.

Continuous heavy rain is also expected across the border in the German state of Bavaria.
This is of course a regional, not a national emergency, with a large area of Central Europe affected.

But a reminder of national priorities came earlier this week when Czech officials said they had been forced to refuse a German request to stop emptying reservoirs into the River Vltava, which flows into the River Elbe ( Labe in Czech) and onwards to Germany, following the collapse of a bridge in Dresden.

Those reservoirs - a series of nine dams known as the Vltava Cascade - will need to be half-empty to take what this weekend has in store.