PARIS — The swollen Seine River kept rising Friday, spilling into Paris streets and forcing one landmark after another to shut down as it surged to its highest levels in nearly 35 years. Across the city, museums, parks and cemeteries were being closed as the city braced for possible evacuations.
The Seine was expected to peak in Paris sometime later Friday at about 16 feet, 3 inches above normal. Authorities shut the Louvre museum, the national library, the Orsay museum and the Grand Palais, Paris’ striking glass-and-steel topped exhibition center.
“We evaluate the situation for all the (cultural) buildings nearly hour-by-hour,” said Culture Minister Audrey Azouley, speaking to journalists outside the world-famous Louvre. “We don’t know yet the evolution of the level of the Seine River in Paris.”
At the Louvre, home to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” curators were scrambling to move some 250,000 artworks from basement storage areas at risk of flooding to safer areas upstairs.
Nearly a week of heavy rain has led to serious flooding across a swathe of Europe, leaving 16 people dead and others missing.
Although the rain has tapered off in some areas, floodwaters are still climbing and could take weeks to clear. Traffic in the French capital was snarled as flooding choked roads and several Paris railway stations shut down.
Basements and apartments in the capital’s well-to-do 16th district began to flood Friday afternoon as the river crept higher, and authorities were preparing possible evacuations in a park and islands on Paris’ western edge.
French authorities activated preliminary plans to transfer the French presidency, ministries and other sensitive sites to secure places in case of flooding. The SGDSN security agency says the French presidency and the prime minister’s office are not immediately threatened but the National Assembly and the Foreign Ministry were at greater risk.
In addition to the Louvre, the Orsay museum, home to a renowned collection of impressionist art on the left bank of the Seine, was also closed Friday as was the Grand Palais, which draws 2.5 million visitors a year.
The Louvre said the museum had not taken such precautions in its modern history — since its 1993 renovation at the very least. Disappointed tourists were being turned away but most were understanding.
“It’s good that they are evacuating the paintings. It’s a shame that we couldn’t see them today, but it’s right that they do these things,” said Carlos Santiago, visiting from Mexico.
Elsewhere in Europe, authorities were counting the cost of the floods as they waded through muddy streets and waterlogged homes.
German authorities said the body of a 65-year-old man was found in the town of Simbach am Inn and a 72-year-old man died of a heart attack after being rescued from a raging stream in the village of Triftern, bringing the country’s death toll from recent flooding to 11.