Amid other offers of help from groups and businesses, carmaker Opel offered to lend flood-affected customers the free use of one of its cars for up to three weeks.
Dresden, with more than two million people, said the peak of 8.75 metres was reached on Thursday, with flood waters lapping through the mud-caked living rooms and trashed gardens of thousands of outlying homes.
However, the old inner city dubbed the “Jewel Box” for its baroque and rococo churches, opera and buildings — was secured by flood barriers installed after the even higher 2002 flood.
People also breathed a cautious sigh of relief as water levels eased in Halle, where Elbe tributary the Saale had reached its highest level in 400 years the day before and authorities have urged 30,000 people to flee.
Upstream in the Czech Republic where five days of flooding killed at least eight people and forced some 20,000 evacuations rescue workers in rubber dinghies were supplying isolated families who lack drinking water, power or gas.
In the industrial centre of Usti nad Labem near the German border, where 11,000 people were told to evacuate, looters targeted empty homes and businesses, and a waiter at a pub-restaurant told how he came face to face with three robbers at night.
Volunteers use an inflatable skiff to transport sandbags as the water from river Saale overruns the German town of Calbe, on June 6, 2013/AFP
“I entered the corridor and got a blow. They broke my nose, my side is sore and there’s something wrong with my ribs,” Ladislav Kratochvil told the DNES daily.
In Austria, where two people have died in the floods, the Danube town of Korneuburg just north of Vienna reported an all-time record river level of 8.06 metres.
Down the Danube in Hungary, preparations moved into high gear to prepare Budapest for the wall of water coming along one of Europe’s longest waterways which empties into the Black Sea.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned large-scale evacuations were likely because of “a real threat to human life” but has pledged that “with good cooperation, we can protect everyone”.
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