News

Firefighters were out in force on Sunday as heavy storms hit the south-western parts of the country, flooding roads and gardens. The Strakonice and Prachatice regions were particularly badly hit, with flash floods reported in the town of Stachy and its surroundings.

Clean-up work is also underway in the eastern parts of the country  following heavy storms in the Vysočina and Pardubice regions. Firefighters and emergency crews were called to dozens of emergencies, pumping water from cellars, clearing fallen trees from roads and rail tracks and in one case a mudslide from afield onto a local road. Some areas had torrential rain, with over fifty millimeters of rain falling in the space of half an hour. Several roofs are reported to have been damaged.

The Ministry of Health is preparing a decree to ban sweet-flavoured electronic cigarettes in order to curtail the growing popularity of e-cigarettes especially among the young. Although by law they cannot be sold to people under 18, many salespeople do not respect this condition and flavoured electronic cigarettes are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers. According to the ministry’s decree only one flavor, tobacco, would remain. Robert Hrdlička, head of the Chamber of Electronic Vaping, has protested against the move, saying that as drafted, the decree would mean the end of vaping in Czechia.

Sunday is expected to be partly cloudy to overcast with daytime highs between 26 and 31 degrees Celsius and rain and heat storms in many parts of the country.

The Prague Metro Authority is alerting the public to the fact that if a person falls onto the tracks in the metro there is an emergency button which will immediately stop an oncoming train. The metro authority says that people often don't know about it, which leads to tragic situations. Last week a metro train killed a blind man who fell onto the tracks at Křižíkova station. People lost time calling a police helpline, although the emergency button was close by. A similar case happened this Thursday when a drunk man fell onto the tracks at Jiřího z Poděbrad station, but luckily he picked himself up and other passengers helped him back onto the platform.

The emergency buttons are located on the platforms for each track separately. They are usually at the beginning and end of the platform, on the walls or on a pillar. There is a protective glass on them, which breaks when pushed.