Poland’s third-largest city Wroclaw was bracing for peaking flood waters on Thursday, with early indications its defences were holding firm, after the worst floods in at least two decades ravaged central Europe this week, writes Reuters.

The flood wave that has inundated the Polish-Czech border region since the weekend reached Wroclaw overnight, but there were no signs of serious damage initially.

“It is too early to announce that the flood in Wroclaw has been overcome”, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said during a meeting with a crisis team: “I would prefer that we hold on nervously and try to guess... the increase in the state of rivers as accurately as possible”.

Agnieszka Popow-Wozniak, 44, an infertility clinic employee who had cycled through the city, told Reuters the situation seems to be better than expected: “There is no flooding in the city centre at the moment (...) The recreational beaches are flooded, but I think we all expected it, and I think for now everything looks optimistic”.

The army said 16,000 soldiers were helping out in the region, alongside police and thousands of volunteers. Tusk was preparing to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other leaders of flood-hit central European states on Thursday after the rains left a trail of destruction from Romania to Poland. At least 24 people have died, with five dead in the Czech Republic, seven in Romania, seven in Poland, and five in Austria.