News

The General Director of the Spolana chemical factory, Radomir Vek, has been sacked following two serious leaks of toxic chlorine gas and liquid chlorine at the flood-damaged plant, just 25 km north of Prague. The plant's board has decided to replace Mr Vek with the General Director of Chemopetrol, Miroslav Kuliha, as of Tuesday. A third degree chemical alert was called in the north Bohemian town of Neratovice and several nearby villages on Friday following an accident at Spolana in which several hundred kilograms of poisonous chlorine gas were released into the air. A Spolana representative later admitted to other flood related problems, saying that close to 80 tons of chlorine had leaked into the river Elbe when the plant was flooded.

Meanwhile, at the plant itself, Spolana's emergency committee decided on Monday to begin pumping out the remaining 12 -14 tons of chlorine, to be converted into non-toxic sodium chlorate. Since a further leak of the chlorine gas into the air cannot be ruled out, rescuers have been put on alert and evacuation buses are ready to transport residents to a secure area.

The authorities in south Moravia and Lower Austria are to set up a joint body to deal with possible flooding in the region of the Dyje river, which separates the Czech Republic and Austria. At a meeting on Friday the chairman of the Czech Senate, Petr Pithart, and Lower Austrian governor, Ervin Proell, agreed that shortcomings in cross-border co-operation during the recent floods needed to be dealt with. Mr Proell said that the floods would be high on the agenda of talks between the Czech and Austrian presidents, Vaclav Havel and Tomas Klestil, when the two men meet in two weeks' time.

The death toll from the floods reached 14 on Thursday, when police found the body of a man floating in a river near Roztoky, just west of Prague. Police believe the body is that of a 24-year-old Slovak who was reported missing. The Czech authorities have launched a massive clean-up following the worst floods in several centuries. More than 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes, many houses were destroyed, and the final cost of repairing the damage could reach three billion dollars.

The presidents of several Central European countries gathered in the town of Castolovice on Thursday in a sign of solidarity during the current flood crisis. Czech President Vaclav Havel received pledges of support and emergency aid from Hungarian President Ferenc Madl and Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski. Slovakia's Rudolf Schuster was unable to attend due to illness. The Visegrad group, consisting of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, was formed ten years ago to promote co-operation among the four former Communist countries. Each is currently a leading candidate for the European Union, and Slovakia may join the other three in the NATO alliance this year.