Almost 4,000 people have been evacuated in the south and east of Norway due to the historic floods caused in that country by the storm that has affected northern Europe in recent days, NRK public television reported Thursday.
Although the rains have been subsiding in recent hours, several rivers in that area of ??Norway present the highest water levels in half a century, according to the Directorate of Aquifer Resources and Energy.
Dozens of provincial highways and the two main roads that link the south and north of the country (the E6 motorway and the national 3 motorway) remain cut off by floods and landslides caused by “Hans”, as the storm has been baptized in Scandinavian countries. The Norwegian authorities have today mobilized five more helicopters to assist in the rescue operations.
“There is a red alert in many places in southern Norway. It may be the highest water levels in fifty years or more,” said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who warned that the alarm is maintained for the “next ” days and that the danger “has by no means passed.”
The Minister of Agriculture, Geir Pollestad, has called a meeting for today with agricultural and forestry organizations to find out their assessment of the situation and possible damage.
The authorities of Sweden, the other Scandinavian country that has been seriously affected by the storm in recent days, today eliminated the weather red alert, although the risk of flooding remains in some regions of the center and south of the country.
Bad weather that has hit northern Europe in recent days has so far caused two fatalities in Lithuania, where a woman died from a falling tree, and in eastern Latvia, where a man died from of injuries sustained in similar circumstances.
