Central Europe factories and retailers shut in flood-hit areas

Published : 4 weeks ago, on 16/09/2024

By Jan Lopatka

PRAGUE (Reuters) -Factories and stores across central Europe shut down production lines and closed their doors on Monday due to flooding that has killed at least 10 people, forced tens of thousands to evacuate and submerged towns from Poland to Romania.

In Ostrava – an industrial city of 290,000 people in northeast Czech Republic – the BorsodChem chemical plant was shut, a spokesperson for the company, partially owned by China’s Wanhua Chemical Group, said.

The OKK Koksovny coking plant – one of the largest producers of foundry coke in Europe – stopped chemicals production but was continuing to keep coking batteries heated to minimum levels, spokesman Jindrich Vanek said.

“There is water that has started rising and there must be a breach of the flood barriers,” he said. “We are without electricity and we are heating our batteries with coking gas, keeping them at technological minimum.”

Czech soft drinks maker Kofola CeskoSlovensko said it was pumping water out of its production facilities in Krnov, some 70 km (44 miles) from Ostrava, and would have a better view on the length of the outage early next week.

The company said it was premature to estimate damage and that it could cover supplies of most products from other plants.

Border areas between the Czech Republic and Poland were hit hard over the weekend, following days of heavy rain. Some bridges collapsed and homes were destroyed, while villages and towns in eastern Romania were submerged.

While rivers in the Czech-Polish border area were starting to recede on Monday, flooding was widening to more areas and leaving bigger cities in both countries on alert.

Veolia Energie has shut its Trebovice electricity and heating plant, which has cut hot water and heating supplies to large parts of Ostrava following flood damage, the company said in a statement.

“At the moment, the supply of heat and hot water in Ostrava is interrupted,” the company said. “The key technologies remained undamaged and therefore if the situation develops favourably we estimate the restoration of supplies in a few days.”

TRANSPORT PROBLEMS

An economist for Czech bank Ceska Sporitelna predicted industry in general would take a hit.

“Industry will receive a negative impulse of one or two percentage points, while the construction sector will receive a positive impulse… thanks to the reconstruction of damaged buildings and infrastructure,” Ceska Sporitelna Chief Economist David Navratil wrote.

The Czech Confederation of Industry said some companies not directly affected by the flooding still had to stop production in hard-hit regions because or problems transporting materials by rail.

Belgian firm Umicore said both its battery materials site in the Polish city of Nysa and its automotive catalysts facility in Nowa Ruda had been secured with limited impact from the floods.

Power utility Tauron said six of its hydroelectric plants in southern Poland were not working due to the floods.

More than 60,000 people were left without power on Monday morning, its press service said.

Polish retailer Zabka said around 80 outlets were currently closed, mainly in the area around the southwest town of Klodzko. The shops were closed due to flooding, lack of electricity or evacuation ordered by the emergency services, its press service told Reuters via email on Monday.

The retailer, owned by private equity fund CVC Capital Partners, added that it had provided water, provisions and transport support to its franchisees and was gathering information on their needs.

(Reporting by Tymon Miller and Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk and Jan Lopatka in Prague; Writing by Michael Kahn; Editing by Alex Richardson)