People in the German city of Dresden have worked through the night to shore up flood defences, as the swollen waters of the River Elbe reach a peak, BBC reports.
The situation remains critical in the southern town of Deggendorf, where levees burst on Wednesday.
The floods, brought on after a wet spring and sudden heavy rain, have caused 13 deaths across central Europe.
In Brussels, the European Commission warned it had run out of emergency funds to help the countries affected.
Rivers in the central Polish province of Lodz have also reached dangerously high levels.
In Hungary, a flood on the Danube is expected to peak in the capital, Budapest, on Monday.
Long lines of volunteers could be seen on river banks in Dresden and other German towns, passing sandbags to each other, helping emergency crews.
The city in the state of Saxony was badly damaged during massive flooding in 2002.
As of Wednesday, the Elbe was running some 7m (21ft) above normal levels.
Disaster appears to have been averted in another eastern city, Halle, where a call went out for evacuations on Wednesday as the level of the River Saale rose.
In Deggendorf in the southern state of Bavaria, hundreds of people were evacuated on Wednesday, some winched to safety by helicopter.
Some 12,600 people have been evacuated in the state as a result of the floods, according to the European Commission.
The Punch
Flood is never a friend to anybody so I'm sure they pray it doesn't happen at the end of the day. I do not envy them at all.