GALLERY: Prague Marks 23 Years Since the Flood Disaster
In early August 2002, heavy rains caused the most devastating floods in modern Czech history. Unseasonably heavy rainfall raised the levels in the Vltava and lower Elbe river basins, as well as in the Czech Ohře and Moravian Dyje. From 6 to 18 August, two massive waves of flooding swept through southern and western Bohemia. In Prague, the flooding culminated on 14 August with a record five-hundred-year flood, inundating the districts of Karlín, Holešovice, Libeň, and Malá Strana, not to mention the Prague metro network. Districts such as Zbraslav, Lahovice, Radotín, Chuchle, and Lipence merged into what rescue workers described as “a single vast lake.” In the north, the lower part of Podbaba, the Lysolaje Valley, Sedlec, and large sections of Troja were submerged. The rising waters left 50,000 residents with no choice but to evacuate. The day before, many had refused to leave voluntarily, but by Wednesday morning, emergency teams were evacuating residents by boat from apartments and offices. Prague’s Metro suffered catastrophic damage. Eight stations were completely flooded, and at the peak of the crisis, around half of the city’s 57 stations were out of service. Line B bore the brunt of the destruction, and it took seven...
