Europe is battling its worst floods in more than two decades.
Rivers were still bursting their banks in Czechia, while the River Danube was rising in Slovakia and Hungary, and parts of Austria and Romania have also been inundated by floodwaters.
The Czech-Polish border areas are among the worst-hit since the weekend, as gushing, debris-filled rivers devastated historic towns, collapsing bridges and destroying houses.
Flooding has killed seven people in Romania, where waters have receded since the weekend, six in Poland, five in Austria, and three in Czechia. Tens of thousands of Czech and Polish households were still without power or fresh water.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk held an emergency meeting on Monday and later declared a disaster in flooded areas, a government measure to facilitate evacuation and rescues.
He announced the government would provide 1 billion zlotys (A$385 million) in immediate payouts to victims.
Szymon Krzysztan, 16, standing in the town square of Ladek Zdroj, described losses from the floods as "unimaginable".
"It's a city like in an apocalypse... It's a ghost town," he said.
Residents in Poland's south-western town of Nysa have been told to flee for higher ground.
Overnight, volunteers helped rescue workers heave sandbags to build up the broken embankment around Nysa. Firefighters and soldiers have also spent the night reinforcing river embankments in the City of Wroclaw in southwestern Poland with sandbags.
While rivers in the Czech-Polish border area are starting to recede, other cities have been put on alert.
In Czechia, a rising Morava River put Litovel — a city with a population of nearly 10,000 — around 70 per cent underwater.
Schools and health facilities have also shut, its mayor said in a video on Facebook.
In Ostrava — an industrial city of 290,000 people in northeast Czechia — the BorsodChem chemical plant was shut, a spokesperson for the company said.
More than 12,000 people have been evacuated, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on social media platform X, as he called an extraordinary government session for Monday.
Slovakia's capital Bratislava and Hungarian capital Budapest are also bracing as the River Danube rises.
In Austria, local media reported that two men drowned after being trapped by rising flood water in their homes
As levels of rivers and reservoirs fell, officials said they were bracing for a second wave as heavier rain was forecast.
In a message on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent words of solidarity to those affected by flooding and said the EU would provide support.
With additional reporting by Reuters and the Australian Associated Press.
