Hungary Battles Floods

CGTN Europe

Hungary’s capital Budapest continues to battle floods as rising levels in the Danube River are planned to reach their peak over the weekend after heavy rainfall devastated parts of Central Europe.  CGTN’s Pablo Gutierrez brings you the latest.   #Hungary #floods #Europe #Danube

Transcript

00:00Floods in Hungary are set to peak, but there are fears of more rain in Central Europe.

00:06Reinforcements have been made in the capital, Budapest, after the Danube burst its banks,

00:11threatening historic sites. The river is expected to reach 8.5 metres above its normal level.

00:17Well, let's take you to Budapest now and join our correspondent, Pablo Guterres.

00:22Pablo, what's the latest on the water levels and how is Hungary preparing?

00:31Well, that's right, Jamie. Let me first tell you where we're at.

00:36We are located about 20 minutes north of the city centre in Budapest.

00:42The city centre is well protected, but the situation is not the same here.

00:47Let me show you just a little bit of how the streets look.

00:51They have been turned into rivers.

00:54This area that you're looking at right now stretches about three kilometres.

00:59There are thousands of people that live here, and right now they're all without power.

01:04Many had to leave yesterday. Others decided to hunker down and stay here.

01:10At about five o'clock in the morning, the Danube reached 8.3 metres.

01:15It's expected that it may gradually start, that water level may start coming down.

01:22Let me show you a little bit more of what we're seeing here.

01:25You are going to see this long stretch of dirt.

01:29This is sort of a secondary line of defence that was built here.

01:34But neighbours on this side, they're saying that they didn't get the help they've been asking for.

01:41Not in five or ten years, but much more than that.

01:45I'm going to show you a sign right here that one of the residents put.

01:49He built this house. It's in Hungarian, but I'm going to tell you what it says.

01:54He built this house in 1954.

01:57They were promised, it says there, that they would get some sort of protection.

02:03It's been 70 years, it says.

02:05Where is the help?

02:07Where is the help is something that I keep hearing from residents in this area.

02:12We have seen police. They are driving up and down this road.

02:17But we have not seen any rescue operations, any first responders taking and helping people out.

02:26What we have seen is neighbours with boats reaching out,

02:30taking some of their neighbours out to buy groceries and get the things that they need.

02:36Right now, we're also hearing that PAX 2 is under a Water 2 level advisory, or advisory mainly.

02:45So there could be more power outages, there could be more gas outages in the city.

02:52The other thing that we're being told by the city is that they are looking into trying to get some sort of aid here.

03:02But it's unclear when that will happen and what sort of help they're going to get.

03:09These people, they were flooded back in 2013 when a big part of Hungary, Budapest, suffered damages because of a flood.

03:20They had to fix it themselves.

03:22They tell me they didn't get any aid from the government or anybody else.

03:29They had to fix their own properties, clean them up, and yet they remain here.

03:36So that is as far as the situation is here in this northern suburb, this northern part of Budapest.

03:44We're waiting to hear more, and so are neighbours in this area.

03:48Jamie, back to you.

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