KIEV (Reuters) - Floods described by a senior government official as the worst in a century have killed 13 people in western Ukraine and four in neighbouring Romania, officials said on Sunday.
Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry said water levels weredangerously high on the Prut and Dnestr rivers after five daysof non-stop rain. More than 20,000 homes have been flooded and7,000 people evacuated, many by boat or helicopter, it said.
At least five of the dead were children and two had beenstruck by lightning, the ministry said. Two people weremissing.
Television footage showed houses cut off by rising waters,rescuers moving down flooded streets on inflatable rafts androads falling into rushing rivers.
"The situation is very difficult. Ukraine has seen nothinglike this for 100 years," Ukrainian media quoted First DeputyChairman Oleksander Turchynov as saying from the region. Hesaid more funds would be needed in the 2008 budget to repairdamage.
President Viktor Yushchenko flew to the worst affected areain the Ivano-Frankivsk region after leaving early a service inKiev marking the 1,020th anniversary of the adoption ofOrthodox Christianity in the region.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was also touring theregion, where three-quarters of the crops had been destroyed.
In Romania, a child drowned and three people were killedwhen a house collapsed into swirling flood water innortheastern Maramures county. Two people were missing.
About 9,000 people from 200 villages were evacuated as raindamaged over 2,000 houses and 19,000 hectares of farmland.
Authorities deployed 3,000 police and troops to pack damswith sandbags as swollen waters from Ukraine were expected tohit Romania again later in the day.
"We have two critical situations, on the rivers Siret andPrut," Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said.
"So you understand the gravity of the situation, waterlevels on the river Prut next to the borders with Ukraine andMoldova are higher than on the Danube."
Rain was forecast in both countries later in the day.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski in Kiev and Marius Zaharia inBucharest, editing by Tim Pearce)