"The water has already reached the edges of the municipality and the national road," said Bistret Mayor Constantin Raicea.

Tents have been put up for flood victims and 1,000 people in total will have to be evacuated, although cattle has already been taken in safety, Raicea told Antena 3 television.

At least 9,000 other people living between Bistret and the town of Masesu de Jos are expected to be evacuated in the coming days, the head of Dolj's emergency services, Colonel Liviu Raducan, was quoted as saying by Mediafax news agency.

Hundreds of police and soldiers managed to strengthen the dyke after working on it for several days, thanks to a slight drop in water levels, rescue officials said.

"Inhabitants must evacuate immediately," President Traian Basescu told reporters after flying over the area in a helicopter on Monday afternoon.

"We have to prepare for a difficult period of two weeks," he said.

On Sunday, 300 people were evacuated as a precaution and some 130 farms were threatened by the floods after another dyke burst in Oltina in southeastern Romania.

Waters from the Danube were flowing mainly into a nearby lake but also threatened neighbouring homes.

Two other dykes have also broken, authorities said Monday -- at Harsova, near Constanta and in Spantov, Calarasi.

In total, 13 dykes in Romania have broken or been damaged along the Danube and its tributaries and authorities have carried out controlled flooding over 21,000 hectares to reduce pressure on flood defences in resident areas, authorities said.

According to an assessment Sunday, 13 counties bordering the Danube have been hit by floods in Romania and more than 5,500 people have been evacuated.

As well as the worst-hit country Romania, floodwaters caused by melting snows and rainfall this month have waterlogged homes, farmland and transport links in Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria.

In Hungary on Monday, another "serious crack" was discovered in a dyke of the River Koros, close to three towns authorities had already been forced to evacuate.

"We are continuing to fortify the dyke at Tiszasas, Csepa and Szeleveny but 200 metres away, there is another serious crack," said the national authority organising the flood defence.

"The coordination authority is on top of the situation, but the risk is still great," it said, adding there were some 6,000 people working on mounting flood defences in the area, including 1,600 soldiers.

The Danube river no longer posed a danger of flooding in Hungary, but several other rivers, including the Tisza and its tributaries, were forcing authorities to maintain their highest level of alert.

In Serbia, authorities said the floodwater in the worst-hit northern Vojvodina province had stabilised, but warned that a risk remained.

On the Tisza, which flows from Hungary into the Danube north of Belgrade, the water had dropped slightly since Sunday but was expected to remain a threat for two more weeks.

The Tisza was still at its highest level since 1970 at the town of Novi Knezevac, just south of the border with Hungary.

Meanwhile in Bulgaria, the Danube's level was stagnant in the northern city of Nikopol, but lower in the towns of Lom, Ruse and Vidin, according to officials.

In the town of Ganserndorf on the Austrian-Slovak border, a Sunday evening benefit concert raised 75,000 euros (93,000 dollars) for flood victims in the area, where damage from the disaster was estimated to have cost 23 million euros.

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