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Thursday, August 15, 2002 - Web posted at 11:24:19 am GMT

DRESDEN, Germany, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The German cultural jewel of Dresden braced on Thursday for its worst flooding in 150 years, as receding waters in Prague revealed the damage already wrought on the historic Czech capital.

Other parts of central Europe including the Slovak capital Bratislava remained on alert for floods that have killed at least 85 people from the Black Sea to the Baltic and destroyed billions of euros worth of buildings, infrastructure and crops.

The rising waters had drowned many of Dresden's Baroque squares and palaces on Wednesday and as the tide advanced, 570 hospital patients were evacuated to nearby towns.

"We have started evacuating certain parts of the city that we know will become islands," Dresden Mayor Ingold Rossberg told ARD television as he surveyed the swirling Elbe river. Officials said about 3,000 of Dresden's 480,000 residents had evacuated.

Officials had predicted the Elbe would reach a depth of 8.5 metres (9 yards) by Thursday, its highest since March 31, 1845.

"The Elbe is rising, but it's rising slowly. It's not clear whether the dykes will hold," said Burkhard Zscheischler, a spokesman for the state crisis centre.

CULTURAL TREASURES UNDER THREAT

Dresden, the Saxon capital, was almost totally destroyed by British and American bombers in 1945 and reconstruction intensified in the past decade after German reunification.

Thousands of works of art in the ornate Zwinger Palace, home to one of Europe's great art collections including Raphael's "Sistine Madonna", were moved to higher levels as water flooded its vaults and those of the restored Semper opera house nearby.

In the Dresden railway station, water lapped up to the top of the windows of abandoned trains and poured through the halls. German towns further downstream were bracing for the worst.

In the Slovak capital Bratislava, soldiers reinforced flood barriers through the night along the Danube after the government called a state of emergency in the area due to what they said could be the river's highest level in five centuries.

"The situation remains critical. The water is still expected to rise, and it should reach its highest level sometime tomorrow morning," said Ladislav Szakallos from the Operational Civic Protection Centre in Bratislava.

The Slovak interior ministry said it expected the Danube to continue swelling until Friday, but it was rising more slowly and officials said anti-flood measures should prevent major evacuations or damage.

PRAGUE RELIEVED

The waters started to recede in the Czech Republic, where authorities this week staged the largest evacuation since World War Two, moving more than 200,000 people to escape the worst floods since records began over a century ago.

Austrian authorities said the situation there was improving, water levels were falling and Vienna was not threatened.

In Prague, officials began to count the costs as water levels eased from a Wednesday peak. Tributaries of the River Vltava began to drop. The Vltava flows into the Elbe.

With barriers holding the flood waters at bay for the most part, the ancient Old Town was spared. But officials said other areas remain in a critical state, under several metres of water and warned evacuated residents not return yet.

Officials say it will take week to put a price on the damage done by the worst flooding in Prague's 800-year history, but it is expected to reach at least 60 billion crowns ($2 billion), similar to the cost of a 1997 flood in the south of the country.

"There's a lot we can't see right now because things are still under water. We hope we don't lose anything, but at this point, we just don't know," Czech Deputy Culture Minister Zdenek Novak told Reuters.

Eleven people have died in floods in the Czech Republic. Officials in Saxony said on Thursday the death toll there had risen to nine. Seven have been killed in Austria and weekend flooding in Russia's Black Sea region killed at least 58.

Hundreds more have died in seasonal floods in South Asia and Iran. Some have blamed the chaos on changes to the global climate wrought by man-made pollution and by others on intensive building along river banks and on flood plains. Nampa-Reuters 1107 150802 WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 151111)

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