Powerful storms with high winds hit Moravia: roofs damaged, dozens of trees knocked down

Severe thunderstorms swept across eastern Czechia on Sunday, bringing hurricane-force winds, heavy rain and hail — the Zlín Region and eastern Silesia were hit hardest, firefighters reported.

According to Kamil Guštiak, spokesman for the Zlín Region fire service, crews had responded to around forty incidents by 4 p.m. on Sunday, mostly in the Zlín and Uherské Hradiště areas. Almost all the callouts involved fallen trees and branches.

Strong winds forced the evacuation of four people from buildings near the site of a high-rise fire in Zlín, which firefighters have now been battling for 11 days. Two days earlier, bad weather had already forced the evacuation of around 20 people from the same location.

The storms also caused damage in the South Moravian Region. According to regional firefighters posting on Threads, 23 incidents were recorded after 2 p.m., most of them around Hodonín, where 16 trees were toppled. Wind ripped off part of the metal roofing on Hodonín's Vančurova primary school.

The storm also raged over Tvrdonice in the Břeclav district, while in Hodonín, on Horní Pléšová Street, wind tore the tin roof off a garage. Firefighters also reported downed high-voltage cables in Veselí nad Moravou, where power engineers have been called to the scene.

Storms also passed over the Vysočina Region, where firefighters in all five districts had logged around two dozen callouts for fallen trees by 4 p.m. In Kejžlice, crews pumped water out of flooded buildings, while in the Jihlava district they cleared a blocked sewer system.

The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute had earlier warned of storms bringing strong winds, heavy rain and large hail. Meteorologists later tightened the warning for hazardous weather — a high-risk alert was in effect until 6 p.m. for the South Bohemian, Vysočina, South Moravian, Olomouc, Zlín and Moravian-Silesian regions.

Source: novinky.cz