Floods that drenched much of northern Europe threatened to burst river dikes Tuesday in the Netherlands. Seventy thousand people were evacuated in the country's worst flooding since 1953.
The floods appeared to be receding Tuesday in Belgium, Germany and France after killing at least 25 people. But the Dutch were gearing up for a major battle with their eternal enemy, the waters that threaten their low-lying country.No deaths were reported from the Dutch floods, but mandatory evacuations of thousands of people began this morning from land in eastern Netherlands where authorities declared a state of emergency.
Tens of thousands of farm animals also had to be shipped out of the "polders" - land reclaimed from marsh and river basins - to keep them from drowning.
Dutch floodwaters were expected to crest Wednesday afternoon, and the danger of dikes bursting made the evacuations more urgent.
"The dikes are stable but weak," said Jan Roelofs, a crisis center spokesman in the eastern city of Nijmegen.
If the dikes ruptured, some villages would be under up to 16 feet of water, authorities said.
One old man told Dutch Television he had left everything behind to take refuge in a relief center in Nijmegen. "What else could I have done?" he asked. "I could have waited, but then it would be too late."
"My girl friend became hysterical. . . . We packed up all our stuff and left," another evacuee told the television station after reaching a nearby relief center. "Everyone was on the road, there was traffic and you just can't get anywhere."
The evacuation from the polders of Bommelerwaard, Wamel, Druten and Ooijpolder was orderly.