Heavy rainfall over Europe during the the past week has swollen many rivers past their flood stage, wreaking havoc unseen in decades across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. At least 18 people across the region have been killed, and tens of thousands have been evacuated. In Germany, the crest of the Elbe River is now approaching the North Sea, as the swollen Danube River is surging toward the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Collected here are images from the past several days of those affected by these historic floods, even as meteorologists predict more rain over the coming weekend.
Flooding Across Central Europe
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The city hall of Grimma, Germany, surrounded by floodwater, on June 3, 2013. Flooding has spread across a large area of central Europe following heavy rainfall in recent days. Eastern and southern Germany are suffering under floods that in some cases are the worst in 400 years. Tens of thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuated from their homes as soldiers raced to pile up sandbags to hold back rising waters in the region. #
AP Photo/dpa, Jens Wolf -
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A firefighter climbs up a flood barrier to check the nozzle of a hose squirting rising groundwater back out into the flooding Elbe River in the city center in Dresden, Germany, on June 6, 2013. #
Sean Gallup/Getty Images -
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A Red Cross member talks to residents from his boat in the flooded center of Passau, Germany, on June 3, 2013. Raging waters from three rivers have flooded large parts of the southeast German city following days of heavy rainfall in central Europe. #
AP Photo/Matthias Schrader -
A statue in the floodwater of the Moson branch of River Danube in Gyor, 120 km west of Budapest, Hungary, on June 6, 2013. The River Danube is expected to peak on June 10 in Budapest, close to its highest level ever, 25 cm higher than the record levels of 2006. #
AP Photo/Csaba Krizsan -
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Shipping containers, partly immersed in water at the flooded harbor in Riesa in the federal state of Saxony after the Elbe River broke through its banks, on June 5, 2013. #
Reuters/Thomas Peter -
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The door of a flooded house in the village of Lounky, Czech Republic, on June 6, 2013. Tens of thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuated from their homes on Wednesday as soldiers raced to pile up sandbags to hold back rising waters in the region's worst floods in a decade. #
Reuters/David W Cerny -
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Rescue forces from the THW (Technisches Hilfswerk) place big sandbags on a dam and a street which is flooded by the swollen Danube River near Fischerdorf, Germany, on June 6, 2013. #
Joerg Koch/Getty Images -
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A resident named Sandra fetches groceries and other necessities with a rubber raft through a flooded street near the swollen Elbe River on June 7, 2013 in Elster, Germany. #
Sean Gallup/Getty Images -
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