Firefighters stranded on flood-hit truck rescued by helicopter | World News

This is the dramatic moment a fire crew stranded on the roof of their truck had to be rescued by helicopter as Storm Boris continued to ravage the Czech Republic.

Footage showed the vehicle submerged in water in the town of Krnov, on the border with Poland, in what has been described as the flood of the century.

Firefighters had been dispatched to help those affected by the floods when they found themselves trapped.

As the flood continued to rise and there was no safe way out, a helicopter was deployed to rescue them.

Hovering above the stranded crew, a team inside the plane lowered a harness, carefully lifting each firefighter off the roof of the truck.

Krnov was almost completely submerged on Sunday as its two rivers, Opava and Opavice, reached record levels.

Police said a woman’s body was found in the water in the city, while two men drowned in the northeastern Czech Republic.

Authorities have declared a state of emergency in two regions in the northeast, including the Jeseniky Mountains near the Polish border.

In the northeast of the country, a number of towns were completely submerged and thousands of residents were evacuated.

Military helicopters joined rescuers on boats to transport people to safety following the storm.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala visited the town of Jesenik, one of the hardest-hit regions.

“The worst is behind us and now we have to deal with all the damage,” he said after the visit.

Waters were receding from mountainous areas on Monday, leaving behind destroyed homes and bridges and damaged roads.

But the rain has resumed and is now expected to last until Wednesday in some areas.

Elsewhere in central and eastern Europe, floodwaters flooded parts of Austria, Poland and Romania as a low pressure system moving through the region triggered record rains for several days.

Rain is expected to affect Slovakia and Hungary later this week.

So far, 16 people have been killed – seven in Romania, five in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk held an emergency meeting and declared a state of disaster in flooded areas, a government measure intended to facilitate evacuations and rescues.

The floods have burst dams and levees while receding waters have left streets covered in piles of debris and mud.

This prompted a hospital in Nysa, a town in southwestern Poland, to evacuate around 40 patients.

Schools and offices in the affected areas were closed on Monday and drinking water and food were being delivered by truck.

Many Polish cities, including Warsaw, have appealed for food donations for flood survivors.

Experts have warned of flood risks from the rising Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 people, and in Wroclaw, home to around 640,000 people and where catastrophic flooding occurred in 1997.

Firefighters in southwestern Poland said the flood victims included a surgeon whose body was found in Nysa on Monday morning after he returned from hospital duty.

The bodies of two women and two other men were found in other parts of the region.

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