As waters recede, Prague’s mayor pleads for tourists’ return
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) – As an American plane loaded with tons of medicine and disinfectants landed at Prague’s airport Thursday, the mayor urged tourists to return to this historic city. The plane, chartered by AmeriCares, a U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization, brought 75,000 pounds of disinfectants, vaccines and other medicine, according to AmeriCares’ Vice President Carol Shattuck, who accompanied the shipment.
Earlier, Prague Mayor Igor Nemec asked tourists to return.
“Prague needs foreign tourists,” Nemec told reporters, adding that media reports about “the natural catastrophe … resulted in the fact that tourists are afraid to come.”
Tourism revenue from the summer – Prague’s high season – may reach only half of the $600 million that was earned the same time last year, said Petr Kuzel, head of Prague’s Chamber of Commerce.
According to the EU, the widespread flooding caused $14.7 billion in damages in Germany; nearly $2 billion in Austria; nearly $3 billion the Czech Republic and more than $34 million in Slovakia.
Elsewhere, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber argued in parliament Thursday about how to fund billions in aid for victims of Germany’s devastating floods, firing up an election-tinged debate under the dome of the Reichstag.
Schroeder presented a $7 billion relief package funded mostly by delaying a tax cut until 2003 to the lower house, recalled from its summer break for an emergency session.
Schroeder, running for a second term, has boosted his public approval with his swift, take-charge response to the floods. He intends to push through the relief measures before Germans elect a new parliament on Sept. 22.
With other funding added in, Schroeder has promised more than $9.8 billion in flood aid.
Stoiber, the Bavarian governor, blasted the administration’s plan to delay the tax cut as bad for the economy, but he renewed a pledge not to block the flood aid in the opposition-dominated upper house out of solidarity with the victims.
Rain-swollen rivers this month raged through Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia, causing an estimated $14.8 billion in damage in Germany alone.
Much of the devastation hit east Germany, an area rebuilt with lavish subsidies in the 12 years since German reunification.
German Insurance giant Allianz said Thursday its share of claims from the disastrous flooding in eastern Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic totaled $539 million – less than 2 percent of its total expected claims for the year.
In Russia, weeks of heavy rains caused two rivers to overflow in the country’s Far East, flooding five villages.
The Malinka and Orekhova Rivers in the far eastern Primorye region overflowed, sending water into 60 homes, said Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry.
The water flooded 1,680 acres of farmland and seven miles of local roads, and washed out a bridge, he said.
Officials have declared a state of emergency in the area, but the water isn’t high enough to evacuate the 180 people in the area.
Russia experienced severe flooding in the southern Black Sea coast region earlier this month, where torrential floodwaters killed 59 people. Scores of people were forced to flee their homes during July flooding in the Primorye region, which damaged hundreds of houses.