Prague mayor: Prague can be ready to fight floods in half a day

Prague Mayor Pavel Bem has said that the weekend's anti-flood exercise showed that the city can be ready to cope with flooding in half a day. It took rescuers precisely half a day to erect barriers along the Vltava River to protect the city, Mr Bem said. Some 500 fire fighters and police officers raised 2.5 kilometres of portable aluminium walls which are designed to protect the city against an 11-metre flood wave, the level which the Vltava River reached during the 2002 floods that cost the city 26 billion crowns (over a billion dollars). The massive exercise, at an overall cost of 2 million crowns (80,000 dollars), started on Friday evening and ended on Sunday afternoon.

Weather

The weather should continue to be partly cloudy in the coming days, with occasional showers. Heavier rain can be expected in the west of the country. Daytime temperatures should range from 23 to 15 degrees Celsius.