Residents urged to flee as floods create havoc across central Europe Deluged: A man walks in floodwaters of the swollen River Elbe in Meissen, Germany on Sunday. German authorities have urged 15,000 more people to flee their homes in a city on the swollen River Elbe as central Europe's worst floods in a decade also threatened Hungary after causing havoc in the Czech Republic and Austria. A torrent of floodwaters in Germany has turned vast areas into a brown water world, sparked a mass mobilisation of emergency workers and caused billions of euros in damage in what one MP termed a "national catastrophe." Rescue helicopters criss-crossed the sky on Sunday and military armoured personnel carriers rumbled through the flood zone, where thousands of troops, firefighters and volunteers were frantically building up flood defences with sandbags. Makeshift dam: Local soldiers sandbag as the River Danube rises in Budapest. Across central Europe, the floods have killed at least 18 people, including 10 in the Czech Republic. The German city of Magdeburg urged 15,000 residents to leave the east bank of the river, where an almost 7.5-metre peak was expected to strain saturated dykes for the next few days. "We hope that the dykes will withstand the pressure over the coming days, but we can't be 100 per cent sure," said fire brigade spokesman Andreas Hamann, one of 1200 emergency staff working around the clock.