The riverbanks are breached but no buildings have been submerged yet in Tartu. However, the water is expected to continue to rise.

TALLINN — Floodwaters continue to rise in Estonia, but no serious damage or contamination has been reported.

In the small town of Mustvee by Lake Peipsi, a near-contamination of fuel into the Mustvee River was stopped by authorities. The emergency call center was notified Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. of chemical pollution on Benito Agirre Street in Mustvee, which was submerged, as the floodwaters breached an underground fuel container.

The rescue team limited the contamination from spreading. The fuel container was extracted with a tractor but about metric five tons of water mixed with fuel was transported with equipment of the Environmental Inspectorate.

Marek Kiik, press spokesman of Southern Estonian Rescue Service Center said that an insignificant amounts of fuel may have been carried away by the flow, but luckily the rescue workers removed the fuel quickly with the help of absorbents.

“Some sort of quantity of fuel may have leaked into the river water, but it does not cause a threat for the environment,” Kiik told Baltic Reports.

Leili Tuul, press spokeswoman of  the Environmental Inspectorate said that it is not certain how much fuel was carried away by the river as nobody really knows when the fuel container started leaking. She said the inspectorate will conduct regular tests on the river for contamination.

“A certain quantity inevitably stayed in the river water and is visible to the eye, but it is stuck in the pieces of ice so it is not possible to gather it from there,” Tuul told Baltic Reports. “However, it will fade away with the flood and does not threaten the environment.”

Record-high water in Tartu

The water level of the Emajõgi River in the country’s second-largest city Tartu was found on Tuesday to be the highest of a decade being now 3 m over its normal level. However, no buildings have been flooded as sandbags have stopped the water from breaching Supilinn-area buildings.

In the Rae municipality near Tallinn, the flooding has spread from the village of Kopli to Lagedi, where several streets are inaccessible to cars due to floodwater. No buildings are submerged, though.

No relief yet

No relief from the flooding is forthcoming as the water level is on an up trend, according to Olga Kovalenko, a hydrologist at the Estonian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

Kovalenko told Baltic Reports that the water level of not only the Emajõgi River in Tartu, but also the Kasari, Keila, Jägala, Vanaküla, and Vihterpalu rivers in northern Estonia will continue to rise.

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