Funny how the media in Norway again fails to report on the flood along Donabe in Austria and Hungary. Newspapers only manage focus on one topic at the time, and the last week have been about Michael Jackson (only). I have just watched the TV news from MTV (Magyar TV) and googled for some pictures. Soldiers and volunteers are doing walls of sand bags on some parts of the river to protect buildings and roads.

As so many times social media these days are a better place to search for information about what is really happening. So also this time, the pictures are found on Flickr. Environment Minister Imre Szabo told reporters that the Danube is expected to peak at 7.6 metres above its normal level in Budapest yesterday. As you can see from the photos, the streets on both side of the river are flooded. The picture below shows the road in front of the Parlament.

Austria has seen some of its heaviest rainfall in 50 years in recent days, causing widespread flooding. All the ferries crossing Donabe in Hungary are now closed cause of that! We have our summer house a long the river Tisza in the east, but my mom can report report that several places in Hungary have gotten a lot of rain lately, some places in between 40 and 50 mm in a matter of hours.

Last year Hungary had flood in Tisza while I was at the summer house. And Donabe had bigger floods then this year in 2002 and 2006.

Also other parts of Hungary have flood. The Raab River rose to nearly 5 metres above its normal level in the western town of Szentgotthard, on Hungary’s border with Austria. This is 30 centimetres higher than a record set in 1965, when a major flood devastated large areas of western Hungary. Since then, however, flood defences have been built up along the river. Nevertheless, trains between Hungary and Austria had to be cancelled as tracks were covered when streams broke their banks.

It feels really strange to think about flood when the temperature in Oslo, yesterday reached 31,3 degrees and Oslo wasn’t even the hottest place in Norway. A small place called Gulsvik had 32,1 degrees. Well, time to prepare for work and another really hot day…

Related link: The Budapest Times – Raba, Danube flooding in W Hungary and Storms unleash killer floods.