In a drama that transfixed the Netherlands, four women on horseback led about 100 horses to safety on Friday from a flood-washed temporary islet where they were stranded for three days.

Rescue workers on horseback lead a herd of horses through flooded fields from a small knoll in Marrum, northern Netherlands, Friday.
(Peter Dejong/AP)

  
Nineteen horses had drowned or died of exposure since Tuesday night, when a storm surge pushed sea water into an area outside the dikes of Marrum, northeast of Amsterdam. The horses took refuge on a muddy mound surrounded by water. 
  
In the rescue, the women guided the herd through receding floodwaters to higher ground about 600 metres away. All of the horses except one followed without hesitation.

One woman fell into the water during the ride but remounted to finish the job. The last horse, led back later, collapsed after reaching shore and was being attended by veterinarians.

The horses' predicament riveted the country, where television and newspapers carried dramatic photographs and footage of the horses bunched together, their backs to the wind that whipped up small waves around the island.

Horses stranded by flood waters huddle on a small piece of land in Marrum, northeast of Amsterdam, on Thursday.
(Catrinus van der Veen, Leeuwarder Courant/Associated Press)

Veterinarians, firefighters and animal welfare officers brought the horses hay and fresh water and emergency workers in boats managed to ferry about 20 to safety on Wednesday.

The water was about a metre deep in most places, but depths reached two metres where drainage channels crossed fields surrounding the knoll.

The Dutch army tried to rescue the animals Wednesday afternoon, but called off the operation when water levels receded to less than a metre in some places, grounding pontoon boats.

With files from the Associated Press