News

Firefighters in Břeclav are helping fishermen with a huge clean-up operation to clear the tens of tons of fish that died of suffocation in the river Dyje in South Moravia during the last week. The Czech News Agency reports that only about a tenth of the total amount of fish has been cleared so far, corresponding to around nine tons, according to Zdeněk Blabla, chairman of the Moravian Fishermen's Association.

The death of the fish is due to a lack of oxygen caused by an overabundance of cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria consume oxygen at night and tend to multiply when there is hot weather, low water levels and a higher than normal concentration of phosphorus, which is the main nutrient the bacteria require. Phosphorus usually enters rivers because water treatment plants do not adequately remove it during the cleaning process, according to Petr Chmelař, spokesman for the Moravian River Basin.

The dead fish are being taken to a rendering plant to be processed. Among them are carp, zander, catfish, and bream. Fishermen estimate the damage caused to be in the millions of crowns.

The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute has issued warnings for all regions in Czechia of exceptionally heavy thunderstorms expected on Saturday.

The first storm could appear on Saturday morning in the west and northwest of Bohemia, with heavy thunderstorms expected throughout the afternoon and evening accompanied by torrential rain, hail, and wind of around 70 kilometres per hour.

However, despite the storms, the heatwave which the country has been experiencing this week still won’t subside and the meteorological institute’s forest fire warning still remains in force.

Czech Post will sell its building in Hybernská Street near Masaryk train station in Prague to Penta, a Slovak-Czech investment group, for a minimum bid price of 220 million crowns. Penta was the only bidder in the e-auction, the Czech News Agency reports.

The former post office closed last year. According to a spokesperson for the investment group, Penta plans to build commercial premises on the site after renovating the heritage-protected portion of the building and demolishing the other part.

Penta is already building two multi-functional buildings for CZK 2.2 billion on a brownfield area in the immediate vicinity of the Masaryk railway station, and at the same time it is working on the reconstruction of the station premises.

Parts of the stucco decorating the art nouveau building which houses the Goethe Institute headquarters in Prague came loose and fell onto the pavement and tram tracks late on Thursday evening. No one was hurt. The institute remains open, although the corner in the immediate vicinity of the building has been closed. A protective net will be placed over the damaged portion.

The cause of the collapse could be the high temperatures that Czechia is currently experiencing, causing the metal elements holding the stucco decoration to expand, although this theory still has to be confirmed by further investigation, the Czech News Agency reports.

The building, which is on the Masaryk embankment near the National Theatre, was built by the architect Jiři Stibral in 1905 as the headquarters of the First Czech Insurance Bank. After the Second World War, it housed the Bulgarian embassy, ​​and between 1949 and 1990 the embassy of the German Democratic Republic. The Goethe Institute, whose mission is to support the German language and culture abroad, has been operating there since 1990 and the German Academic Exchange Service and Café Goethe also have their facilities in the building.