Floods throughout central Europe have devastated the landscape, forcing citizens to leave their homes, closing factories and storefronts, and killing at least six.

Five of the deceased were found in the Czech Republic, where the storm hit hard during the weekend. Volunteers stacked sandbags at the Czech capital's historic center on Monday, in efforts to stop up the massive flooding that also hit parts of Germany Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, according to Reuters.  

In Austria, one worker assisting in the clean-up was killed by a mud-slide near Salzburg, located at the foot of the Alps. Another three were reported missing hours later.

Some say this is the worst flood that has hit Europe in decades.  According to Radio Free Europe, the last time Central Europe experienced such a catastrophe was more than a decade ago, when 17 people were killed in a 2002 flood that ravaged buildings, bringing damage costs to over 20 billion euros.

On Monday, Volkswagen shut down its plant in Zwickau, in the German state of Saxony, for employees of the German carmaker could not even make it to work. In parts of the southern German town Passau, the river Danube, along with two other bodies of water, flooded the streets. All commerce and travel on the Rhine and Danube rivers were also called to a halt.

The metro system was shut down in Prague as well, where authorities told Reuters they didn't want to take any chances. On the winding avenues near the river, soldiers installed mobile metal fences, in addition to the piles of sandbags standing tall nearby.

Thick tree trunks bobbed by, as brown, mud-stained water submerged cafes and storefronts.

British tourist Alison Tadman, who traveled to Prague with her husband for her 47 birthday, said that this was completely unexpected.

"We left England yesterday and it was sunny and warm," she said. "We didn't expect this, we don't even have our raincoats."

The two are currently shacked up in a McDonalds, seeking refuge from the two-day-long heavy rains.

As thousands of people in the low-elevation areas of Austria and the Czech Republic evacuate from their homes, hundreds more must flee-Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas released a state of emergency on Sunday for the greater portion of the Eastern European country.

Citizens have been told that the Danube river could flood even more, moving downstream to other European countries along the way.