Soldiers and volunteers in south-western Poland have been placing sandbags near swollen rivers in the region of Wroclaw as they worked to safeguard homes and businesses after days of flooding across central Europe.

Several central European nations have been hit by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, as a result of a low pressure system that began dumping record rainfall in the region last Thursday.

Authorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic.

The combination of floods in central Europe and deadly wildfires in Portugal are joint proof of a “climate breakdown” that will become the norm unless drastic action is taken, the European Union’s head office said on Wednesday.

The fourth death in the Czech Republic was reported on Wednesday, when police said they found the body of a 70-year-old woman who was swept away by water on Sunday in a town in the badly hit north-east.

The weather has improved, with warm and sunny conditions in the Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere. Water levels were falling in some places, allowing authorities and residents to clean up debris.

Firefighters in Poland were pumping water out of flooded streets and basements. And in Romania, about 1,000 firefighters were working across the country to clean up severely affected areas.

But some areas are still facing a threat, particularly in south-western Poland.

Soldiers and residents in Marcinkowice, near Wroclaw, were laying sandbags near a bridge over the Olawa River, whose waters flow into the Oder, the major river that rises in the Oder Mountains in the Czech Republic and runs north through Poland to Germany.

The community leader of the town of Olawa, Artur Piotrowski, described the situation as difficult. He told the Polish state news agency PAP that two villages in a low-lying area have been flooded since Monday and residents refused to evacuate.

Thousands of Polish soldiers were in action. Some evacuated people and animals – including dogs and horses – from flood-affected areas and distributed food and drinking water.

The army also posted on X on Wednesday that it has set up a field hospital in the town of Nysa after patients in a hospital there had to be evacuated earlier this week.

Experts have been preparing for flood threats due to the cresting Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 residents, and Wroclaw, home to about 640,000 residents, which suffered disastrous flooding in 1997.