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In this special edition of Talking Point, Dita Asiedu looks at the past few days of devastating floods that swept across the country, taking the lives of 14 people.

The Czech government has made public an official preliminary estimate of damage caused by the sweeping floods - 60 to 90 billion Czech crowns which is approximately 2 to 3 billion USD. The catastrophe changed the lives of thousands upon thousands across the country. Many people are asking why, and are refusing to put all the blame on an unfortunate and unprecedented meteorological situation. More from Vladimir Tax.

Under normal circumstances, most people would envy Vaclav Richter his flat in Prague's Old Town, down near the river and right by the medieval Convent of Saint Agnes. But because of the floods Vaclav, who works as a journalist here at Radio Prague, was among the 50 thousand Prague citizens evacuated last week. After several nervous days of no news about the state of his house, he decided to ignore police cordons and go and have a look. This in itself was something of an adventure, and as Vaclav Richter now tells us, he suddenly found himself

As the country struggles to deal with the damage caused by last week's devastating floods, people face plenty of secondary problems. Telecommunications and transport remain crippled. Getting through to anyone on the phone is a major challenge, getting somewhere in person even more so.

A 12-year-old seal named Gaston made international headlines when he escaped from Prague zoo during last week's floods, swimming around 120 kilometres in five days, before being recaptured north of Dresden in Germany. Unfortunately, the seal died on Tuesday while being transported back to Prague, evidently from shock and exhaustion; his death was sadly typical of the misfortune which has befallen Prague zoo over the last week. Ian Willoughby has more.

A week after devastating floods swept through the Czech Republic, life in the country is slowly returning to normal. Thousands of people have returned from evacuation shelters to clean up their homes, take stock of their circumstances and learn to live with their losses. But not everyone has a home to come back to.

As the water in the Czech Republic has been receding, it may take two weeks before all the damages to both private and public property are assessed. However, one thing is clear - the devastating floods over the past two weeks caused more damage than the previous biggest floods in modern Czech history, five years ago. Although the total losses have not been established yet, government representatives say it will be necessary to revise next year's state budget priorities, including a purchase of modern supersonic fighter jets for the Czech Air Force.

Besides a large number of international organisations, several countries have expressed solidarity with the Czech Republic, offering machinery, monetary aid and man power. On Saturday, Italy sent water pumps and drying equipment, over 70 fire fighters from the German city of Frankfurt and 82 fire fighters from southern Poland set off to help the flood affected areas, and useful machinery is on its way from Great Britain and Sweden. The Russian embassy as well as the Israeli Foreign Minister, Simon Peres, also offered their country's help to the flood-hit areas.

Furthermore, in a telephone conversation on Saturday, the U.S. President, George Bush, told his Czech counterpart Vaclav Havel that the USA would help the Czech Republic recover from the devastating floods with every possible means. According to the U.S. embassy in Prague, some 500,000 U.S. dollars have already been provided for immediate aid. The American embassy also offered to take over care and cleaning of Kampa island, one of the hardest hit parts of Prague as well as collect donations from U.S. firms and U.S. citizens living in the Czech Republic to be used for the reconstruction of Kampa park. According to the CTK news agency, the United States also plans to offer engineer equipment to those areas affected by the floods that it liberated in World War Two. This would involve the West Bohemian town of Plzen and the South Bohemian town of Pisek. A diplomatic source in Washington told the news agency that a proposal has already been submitted to the Czech side. Details are expected to be discussed during a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Craig Stapleton, and the Mayor of Plzen on Tuesday.

Another house in the Prague 8 district of Karlin collapsed at about one o'clock after midnight. The interior ministry believes that no lives were lost as no bodies were found whilst rescue workers searched through the rubble. The building collapsed despite experts claiming it was safe. The police have now closed off much of the area to allow for further testing of building structures. The 25,000 evacuated people living in the district, will now have to wait longer before being allowed to return to their homes. On Saturday night, many had a brief chance to collect a few items before the area was cordoned off again. Saturday night's collapse was the third in the past three days. The first building collapsed on Thursday, the second on Friday.

The Czech Republic is recording a gradual fall of water levels throughout the country after this week's catastrophic floods. In Prague, on Sunday morning, levels on the Vltava river were down by five metres from Wednesday's high. Experts, however, expect a month to pass before levels get back to normal. Rescue teams in the flood-hit areas have been replaced by thousands of clean-up workers and heavy machinery to remove tonnes of mud and debris. The country's hygiene officers have also warned of a possible outbreak of epidemics and urged those taking part in rescue work to respect health precautions and get vaccinated against diseases.

In the past week 220,000 people were evacuated from their homes. According to figures released by the interior ministry, 18,300 people took part in rescue work, out of which 3,500 were professional fire fighters, 7,800 volunteer fire fighters, and 7,000 police. Some 2,500 soldiers patrolled the evacuated areas for fear of looting. Fourteen people are believed to have lost their lives.