- The <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/18/wflood18.xml>floods
that swept across central Europe last month have devastated wildlife and
plants to such an extent that they will take decades to recover, according
to reports published last week.
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- A plague of mosquitoes, rats and cockroaches has also
been unleashed by the flood waters.
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- Teams of volunteers continue to clear mud from roads
as the process of rebuilding, which is expected to cost European governments
£3 billion, begins.
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- Large areas of countryside are either still underwater
or coated in layers of mud and debris.
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- "At the bottom of all that mud are countless plants,
whole meadows and shrublands that just don't exist anymore," said
Dr Karl Schellmann, a consultant for the Austrian environmental group Global
2000.
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- "These were the feeding grounds and homes for many
animals, so even those that survived the floodwaters are endangered because
they do not have enough to eat. Europe will take decades to recover."
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- Vienna University produced a report last week which showed
that the flooding was the worst in central Europe for more than 2,000 years,
or as far as records go back.
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- "A flood like this usually does not even come along
once in a century. It's the sort of thing one sees only once every 2,000
to 10,000 years," a university spokesman, Walter Hoffmann, said.
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- The Austrian Hunters' Association, which manages large
tracts of countryside and monitors wildlife populations, said that scores
of herds of deer had been wiped out and rivers stripped of fish as the
flood waters washed them into surrounding countryside, where they died
as the waters subsided.
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- An estimated two million fish died in the <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/24/wflood24.xml>Czech
Republic's River Havel alone, their bodies still rotting in nearby fields.
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- "As the waters recede, we are finding scores of
dead fish miles away from the nearest river," said the association's
Hans Friedmann Zedka.
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- Millions of rainbow trout, pike and salmon have been
lost. "The whole stock of fish from the Gartower Lake is now lying
in our gardens and streets. Apart from the loss of the fish, the stench
is overpowering," said Johannes Ehold, a local businessman in Laasche,
Germany, which lies <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/21/wflud21.xml>along
the River Elbe.
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- The few river creatures to survive are having to contend
with up to 500,000 gallons of heating oil that leaked from domestic systems
into the ground water in Austria.
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- "There is still a lot of flood water in certain
areas of Austria and Germany - as much as 16-feet in some places - as well
as a great deal of sludge.
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- "Much of the flora and fauna has been flattened
and many animals have perished, either drowning or starving in the days
that followed the flooding," said Alois Gansterer, the president of
the hunters' association.
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- Besides deer, other wildlife - from hares and pheasants
to wild pigs and badgers - has died. Now the survivors face the threat
of disease.
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- Klaus Hacklaender, a zoologist from the Veterinary University
in Vienna, said that disease was spreading among animals in the wake of
the flooding.
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- Rats, however, are flourishing. In Bratislava, the capital
of Slovakia, health authorities are speaking of a "plague". Hygiene
officers have issued orders for rat poison to be put in the basements of
"every building" in an attempt to ward off disease.
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- Pest control officials in Austria are inundated with
calls to deal not merely with the rodents but with millions of cockroaches,
too.
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- "The damp heat provides the perfect breeding conditions
for insects such as cockroaches," said Marianne Panek from the Austrian
pest control firm Esol. We are all on emergency alert in Vienna working
round the clock."
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- Authorities in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic
have mostly admitted defeat in trying to kill off mosquitoes that now also
have ideal breeding conditions.
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- Warnings have been issued that people must merely take
care to be "bitten as little as possible". Weeks after the floods,
eggs laid on the vast lakes created by the flood waters are turning into
swarms of mosquitoes.
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- "It looks really bad. In some places it's impossible
to go outside without protection," said Oldrich Sebesta at a regional
hygiene station in the Czech republic.
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- In some areas, such as the village of Marchegg on the
Czech border, signs have been put up declaring paths "no go"
areas because of the numbers of mosquitoes.
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- Gerhard Scheffer, 52, a farmer, found five of his cows
dead in a field after the animals were attacked by the mosquitoes. At first
he thought his cattle had been killed by disease at his farm in Baunatal,
central Germany, but a later examination of the carcasses discovered thousands
of bites.
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- The floods have also resulted in a boom in fungi growth,
which has left at least two people dead and dozens more in hospital after
amateur pickers plucked poisonous toadstools instead of edible mushrooms.
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- Austria has had more cases of poisoning than other countries
and authorities have now set up a special "fungus hotline" where
people can get advice.
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- A spokesman for the hotline said: "We estimate that
one-out-of-10 callers have picked poisonous toadstools instead of mushrooms."
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