San Francisco Frontiers - Fear and tears as Storm Boris wrecks Czech town

The town of Krnov on the border with Poland was hit by a devastating wave of stormwater Sunday as the Opava and Opavice rivers rose to record levels.

Picking his way between cobblestones ripped from a nearby historic street that are now strewn across the main square, Prochazka said the deluge brought by Storm Boris was even worse than the murderous 1997 flood that also hit the town of 23,000 people.

That left 50 dead across mostly the east of the Central European country, and caused 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) of damage.

"It's a disaster," Prochazka told AFP as he carried a bucket of drinking water from a tank, with supplies of clean water hit.

"Officials said 80 percent of Krnov was under water. We were trapped at home so we could not see anything except the stream on our street."

The town, with its neat historic churches and castle, is at the confluence of the two rivers, so was particularly vulnerable to the rising waters.

Its centre resembled a battlefield Monday as people walked among the mud and debris, negotiating newly-formed pools and potholes gouged out by the floodwaters.

- 'Nightmare' -

In a nearby housing estate, pensioner Eliska Cokreska had been walking around with the help of sticks to survey the damage.

"I went as far as the castle garden, it's a disaster. All pavements are destroyed, everything's toppled here, everything's broken... it's all destroyed, it's a nightmare," she told AFP.

"It will take ages to put everything right."

The Krnov rivers rose quickly from the heavy rainfall Storm Boris brought to Central Europe over the weekend.

They both peaked on Sunday and then retreated fast to reveal the damage for Monday's early risers.

"Sunday was the worst, water was coming from all sides, you didn't know where it was coming from," said Cokreska.

"We've had enough -- we had one flood (in 1997) and now another," she added.

A mark on a house in the city centre and fresh water stains suggested that Sunday's fkood reached about 30 centimetres (one foot) higher than in 1997.

"I was just telling myself, 'Oh God, make it pass'," said Cokreska.

- 'Lost for words' -

Officials said on Monday that one person died and eight are missing across the Czech Republic in the wake of the storm.

Road and railway traffic was disrupted across the country and tens of thousands of households are still without power, especially in the northeast which was hit the hardest.

The rain resumed on Monday and was expected to last until Wednesday in some areas.

Visibly moved, Krnov councillor Marketa Juroskova Bezrucova said she was "stressed, sad and gutted".

"I was trapped at home, on the fifth floor but between the two rivers, thinking of our beautiful city," she added.

"We have been doing it up and we were on track to make it really beautiful and accessible for tourists," she said.

She paused and tried to compose herself before her emotions got the better of her.

"I'm just lost for words," she said as the tears welled up.

R.Baker--SFF