Posted on 08/17/2002 6:10:32 PM PDT by knighthawk
CRAWFORD, Texas: US President George W Bush telephoned Czech President Vaclav Havel on Saturday to offer sympathy for deaths and damage from massive flooding there and offer more US aid, the White House said.
"President Bush called President Havel to convey the American people's deepest sympathies for the recent loss of life and damage from the flooding," said Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan.
Bush told Havel that US ambassador Craig Stapleton had cut short his vacation and was returning to Prague on Saturday to help oversee US assistance there, which thus far had consisted of some financial assistance as well as teams of Navy personnel operating heavy pumps, the spokeswoman said.
Additional financial assistance was in the works, she said, declining to provide a dollar figure.
Bush - who placed the call from his ranch near this flyspeck Texas town - also told Havel he looks forward to their September 18 meeting in Washington, according to Buchan.
Flood waters were receding across the Czech Republic on Saturday, but more than 200,000 people remained displaced from their homes and large parts of the countryside were still inundated.
As the river Elbe reached record levels across the border in southeastern Germany, thousands of Czechs were still waiting to return to their homes and businesses to begin picking up the pieces of their lives.
The State Department announced on Thursday that the US had contributed $50,000 in emergency flood aid to the Czech Red Cross and had established a fund for contributions to assist flood victims there.
Deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said that the money had been approved on Wednesday by the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance within the US Agency for International Development and added additional contributions were being considered.
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