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.

Soldiers and volunteers in southwestern Poland have laid sandbags near swollen rivers around the city of Wrocław to protect homes and businesses after days of flooding across Central Europe. Poland joins Austria, the Czech Republic and Romania in being hard hit by floods following record rains in the region starting last Thursday.

Soldiers and firefighters used sandbags to reinforce river embankments and delivered food and drinking water to cut-off communities as the worst flooding in years moved Tuesday across a broad swath of Central Europe,

Volunteers in the Polish town of Nysa fortified floodwalls to stem swollen rivers on Tuesday after heavy rain and flooding round central Europe that has killed at least 18 people. Rivers were still spilling banks in the Czech Republic,