A woman carries her dog through a flooded street in the city of Mielec in Southern Poland on Tuesday. Krzysztof Koch/Agencja Gazeta/Reuters

Flooding in southern Poland has killed at least five people and officials closed the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site on Tuesday to protect its Holocaust archives and artifacts.

Nearly 2,000 people were evacuated from their homes as the flooding claimed two more victims Tuesday, including one of the thousands of firefighters involved in the rescue efforts. Three people were reported dead on Monday.

Heavy rains that began in central Europe last weekend also are causing flooding in areas of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with rivers bursting their banks, inundating low-lying homes and roads, and cutting off villages.

Rail service, power supply disrupted

Thousands of people have been evacuated from the area, and electricity has been knocked out in some parts of the country. Rail travel also was paralyzed, rendering some areas unreachable.

Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai of Hungary declared a state of emergency in the northeastern Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen county, allowing those suffering financial losses to claim compensation.

The flooding and strong winds disrupted rail services in many parts of Hungary, while several towns in the northeast were unreachable. As of early Tuesday, more than 1,400 Hungarians had been forced to leave their homes.

The situation also was serious in the northwestern Czech Republic, where the rising waters of the Becva River flooded the town of Troubky, which was partially evacuated.

In neighbouring Slovakia, the government said it would deploy up to 3,700 soldiers to help local authorities cope with flooding.

And in Serbia, President Boris Tadic toured a southern area that was badly hit by flooding over the weekend.