News

People around Czechia are donating food and basic hygiene products for the needy on Saturday within the bi-annual National Food Collection.

Some 2,000 shops and supermarket chains around the country have joined the collection to help seniors, singles mothers, the handicapped, disadvantages families and children in care homes. People can also donate products bought online.

According to Aleš Slavíček, executive chairman of the Czech Federation of Food Banks, the demand for food aid has risen steeply in recent months, increasing by 20 to 30 percent in some regions.

Last year, food banks supported around 300,000 people, but there are significantly more that would need help, with around a million people in the country living on the brink of poverty.

Saturday is expected to be wet and overcast, with daytime temperatures of between 4 and 7 degrees Celsius.

The Czech Labour Inspectorate is investigating the case of two men who died on May 26 this year while working to ventilate the shaft of a heat pipe at the Temelín nuclear power plant. A spokesman for the state labour inspectorate told the Czech News Agency that they are investigating both energy company ČEZ, which operates the Temelín power plant, as well as the contractors and subcontractors who participated in the construction of the heat pipe. The police are also investigating the case, but have not yet released any information about the incident.

A court in České Budějovice has begun hearing the case of two men accused of causing the death of two women in the Austrian Alps due to negligence and misconduct. The men are accused of illegally leading expeditions through the Alps without a licence.

The first woman died in 2019 when one of the men organised an expedition of two dozen people to Austria, but instead sent his friend, the second of the two men, in his place as leader of the group. According to the South Bohemian police, this second man was not qualified to be a professional mountain guide and did not have the necessary experience to lead such a large number of people in difficult terrain. He also went ahead with the expedition despite warnings about bad weather and possible thunderstorms. The police argue that as a result of all these factors, one member of the group, a 24-year-old woman, slipped and suffered fatal injuries after a steep fall during a dangerous descent.

The Czech Association of Mountain Guides expelled the first man from the association and he lost his guide qualification. However, he continued to organise other tours even without a license, and in 2020, he organised another group hike where another woman died after the guide failed to properly respond to the signs she was showing of mental and physical exhaustion. The woman fell from a height of about 50 metres during the descent and died. In both cases, the accused men tried to conceal from the authorities the fact that they were the organisers of the expedition.