Beavers caused a dam to burst in a Polish town, resulting in extensive flood damage, including the collapse of a major local road that could take months to repair.
Six teams of firefighters worked to secure the road after a ten-by-eight-metre hole appeared amid the flooding on Sunday night, spokesman Grzegorz Paluch told the Polish Press Agency. A number of basements in Łobez, a town of 10,000 in northwest Poland, were also submerged in water.
W Łobzie doszło do podtopienia budynków oraz przerwania DW151 przez wodę, która przerwała wał pobliskiego stawu. W działaniach PSP i OSP. Sytuację na bieżąco monitoruje @BoguckiZbigniew Wojewoda Zachodniopomorski. Zwołano Sztab Kryzysowy w Łobzie. pic.twitter.com/FFMNCujzO9
— Marek Popławski – KW PSP Szczecin🇵🇱 (@M_Poplawski_) November 6, 2022
Sandbags had been set up earlier by fire brigade teams to protect several buildings in anticipation of the flood, preventing damage to other properties in the area. No casualties were reported from the flooding and detours are already in place around the damaged road.
Sebastian Kurłowicz, deputy chief of the Łobez fire service, told local news service Lobez.pl that beavers were the likely cause of the flooding. The town’s mayor, Piotr Ćwikła, explained that the animals had blocked some channels, causing water to accumulate and eventually burst through a man-made dam.
Ćwikła estimates that it will take up to two months to repair the damaged road, reports TVN24. He says that this will be a major inconvenience as the route is used by trucks to access the town’s logistics centre.
The damaged road from above (TVN screenshot)
While hunting almost led to the extinction of beavers in Poland – with only an estimated 235 left in Poland by 1928 – postwar reintroduction programmes and more recent legal protections have seen their numbers boom – to almost 140,000 by 2020, according to the state water agency, PGW WP.
Beavers play an important role in tackling drought by retaining water through the dams they build, which also create “oases of biodiversity” notes PGW WP. However, they can also cause damage to roads, houses and farmland, leading some to call for culls to keep their numbers down.
Main image credit: OSP w Węgorzynie
Anna Hackett is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a recent graduate of European Studies from Trinity College Dublin and has had previous journalistic experience with the Irish Independent News & Media group.
