Recovery From Balkan Floods Will Cost Billions

See the Eerie Ghost Towns Left After Historic Flooding
 

Recovering from the record flooding of the past week will cost Bosnia and Serbia billions that neither country has, officials said Wednesday.

Although there's no official total for flood damages, the Raiffeisen Investment Group said in a note to investors that preliminary estimates are nearly 1.3 billion euros ($1.8 billion) for Bosnia alone. Bosnian President Bakir Izetbegovic said the damage bill would reach the billions.

In neighboring Serbia, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said damages could reach 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion).

Both countries already have opened negotiations with the European Union to support reconstruction efforts. Separately, Bosnia's Serb region has opened talks with its ally Russia.

The flooding affected 40 percent of Bosnia, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija said. It wrecked the main agriculture industry in the northern flatlands, wiping out infrastructure, farms, buildings and homes. One quarter of the country's 4 million people have been affected by the six days of floods and 2,100 landslides.

"This country has not experienced such a natural cataclysm ever," Lagumdzija said Wednesday.

The flooding has led to at least 51 deaths: 27 in Serbia, 22 in Bosnia, and two in Croatia.

Serbia's minister for construction, transportation and infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlovic, said 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) of roads have been destroyed or damaged and 30 percent of railway lines are closed.

"It's an enormous tragedy," said Kristalina Georgieva of the European Commission's International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response unit. The EU has deployed rescue workers, helicopters, boats, tents and other aid from 16 member countries and plans more help.

"Right now, we are at the emergency assistance phase," she said, suggesting a focus on saving lives and preventing the spread of disease. In the next phase, EU and local experts will assess the damage.

Bosnia has one of the weakest economies in Europe and an unemployment rate of up to 44 percent. Almost no one has property insurance, meaning many residents lost virtually everything.

On Wednesday, a mine exploded near the northern village of Cerik, where the flooding had moved one of the more than 9,000 minefields left over from Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Nobody was hurt.

Serbia, like much of the Balkans, is poor. The country's economy has failed to recover fully following the wars and international sanctions in the 1990s, and also is hobbled by mismanagement and corruption. The unemployment rate officially stands at 20 percent but is much higher in reality.

Appeal for aid as rescue continues : Flood Balkans

Guy Delauney reports on the latest rescue efforts in Belgrade

Serbia and Bosnia have called for international help to rescue people from inundated areas after the worst flooding since modern records began.

Waters are now beginning to recede, but officials say dangers remain.
They say that the threat of landslides is an ever-present problem as are the difficulties caused by unexploded landmines in Bosnia and river surges.

Serbia's main power plant is still at risk of flooding. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.
Bosnian Refugee Minister Adil Osmanovic described the flooding as "catastrophic".
Overwhelmed
 
Officials say that three months' worth of rain has fallen on the Balkans in recent days, producing the worst floods since rainfall measurements began 120 years ago.

The town of Orasje in northern Bosnia is caught between the Sava river on one side and another flooding river, the Bosna, on the other

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that 12 bodies had been found so far in Obrenovac, the town where the coal-fired Nikola Tesla power plant is located

At least 35 people have died - with more casualties expected.
A large international aid operation is underway, with rescue helicopters from the European Union, US and Russia evacuating people from affected areas. But Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia now needed further help, particularly deliveries of food, clothing and bottled water.

Aerial footage showed flooding near Serbia's Tesla power plant

 The rain caused more than 2,000 landslides in hilly Bosnia, officials say, enveloping roads, homes and whole villages.
Rescuers are urging people to go to the balconies or rooftops of their houses with bright fabric to make themselves visible.

'Flood wave'

The north-eastern part of Bosnia is reported to be especially badly affected, with houses, roads and rail lines submerged.

The flooding has not only left thousands homeless, but has done lasting damage to the infrastructure of the Balkans

Damage to the coal mine near the village of Veliki Crljeni in Serbia is estimated at more than 100m euros ($137m)

Thousands of people still needed to be evacuated from their homes in Bosnia on Sunday, fleeing the rising waters of the Sava River

Hundreds of people have fled the flooded zone in boats and trucks - some of the more infirm have been evacuated by helicopter

Officials say that about a million people - more than a quarter of the country's population - live in the worst-affected areas.

The floods and landslides have raised fears about the estimated one million land mines planted during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Nearly 120,000 of the unexploded devices remain in more than 9,400 carefully marked minefields, officials say.

But the weather dislodged warning signs and in many cases loosened the mines themselves.

'Terrifying situation'

The flooding and landslide threat in Serbia is equally serious, made worse by the the constant threat of surging river levels.

Residents spent the weekend piling up sandbags in riverside towns - including Belgrade.
Mihajlo Andric from Osecina, Serbia, told the BBC that he was trapped inside his house for almost two days in a "terrifying situation".

"Roads and territory all around my area have been devastated by the floods," he said.

Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic; ''It's been a very emotional week for me'

"We had no power, but luckily we had supplies. There are 15,000 people living in this town and many were badly affected by the flooding."
Serbia's state-run EPS power company said crews were doing all they could to prevent further damage to the Tesla power plant.


Parts of the plant and a nearby mine that provides its fuel were underwater. Damage to the mine alone is estimated at more than 100m euros ($137m).

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic has joined calls for help.
"Support and solidarity for my people in Serbia!'' he wrote on his Twitter account.
Large parts of eastern Croatia are also underwater, with villages still cut off and hundreds forced to escape the flooded zone in boats and trucks.
Source: BBC News

Ratko Mladic war crime defence due to begin

Ratko Mladic has been highly critical of The Hague proceedings against him

The defense in the trial of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity is due to begin on Monday.

The 72-year-old is one of the most high-profile suspects to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Mr Mladic denies 11 charges dating to the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

He is specifically accused of a role in the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica.
The massacre was Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic in Pale in 1993. Both men are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of WW2

Mr Mladic has denounced the UN tribunal as "satanic".
The defence argues that Gen Mladic was simply a soldier following orders.

His lawyers have described him as a self-proclaimed patriot who fought to defend his people.
The defence will also attempt to refute the prosecution's claim that the general led a targeted campaign to ethnically cleanse parts of Bosnia of non-Serbs and make them part of a greater Serbia.

But they are expected to point out that Mr Mladic suffers from a memory disorder that makes it hard for him to differentiate between truth and fiction.

The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says that although he denies the charges, many survivors consider Ratko Mladic to be one of those most responsible their suffering.
Our correspondent says that for them, the trial is a chance to hear the truth and experience some form of justice.

The defence has been given 207 hours to present its case, the same amount of time given to the prosecution.

There is no limit to the number of witnesses the defence can call.
In the Srebrenica enclave, Bosnian Serb forces overran the #UN-defended safe area, killing Muslim men and boys in July 1995.

Ratko Mladic was the general in charge of the troops. He was on the run for 16 years before being arrested in 2011 in northern Serbia, where he had been living under anYo assumed name.
Also being tried in The Hague is former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who like Mr Mladic is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Source: BBC News

Balkans flooding threatens Serbia power plants, 37 dead

Soldiers, police and villagers battled to protect power plants in Serbia from rising flood waters on Sunday as the death toll from the Balkan region's worst rainfall in more than a century reached 37.

Evacuees from Obrenovac take a rest on beds in shelter hall in Belgrade

 

KOSTOLAC, #Serbia/DOBOJ, #Bosnia — Soldiers, police and villagers battled to protect power plants in Serbia from rising flood waters on Sunday as the death toll from the Balkan region's worst rainfall in more than a century reached 37.

Twelve bodies were recovered from the worst-hit Serbian town of Obrenovac, 30 km (18 miles) southwest of the capital, Belgrade, but the number was likely to rise as waters receded.
"The situation is catastrophic," Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told reporters.

Hundreds of soldiers and residents scrambled to raise sandbag barriers around the perimeter of the Kostolac power plant east of Belgrade, where a Reuters cameraman said waters from the swollen River Mlava, a tributary to the much larger River Danube, had come to within a kilometer.

Workers at the plant joined the effort, digging up a road in a bid to divert waters that threatened to flood nearby coal mines. The Kostolac plant supplies 20 percent of Serbia's electricity needs.

Russian cargo planes carrying boats, generators and food joined rescue teams from around Europe and thousands of local volunteers in evacuating people and building flood defenses after the River Sava, swollen by days of torrential rain, burst its banks.

Rains eased and flood waters receded on Sunday in some of the worst-hit areas of Serbia and Bosnia, but the Sava was forecast to rise further. Thousands of people have been displaced.
Serbia's EPS power utility said a fresh flood wave also threatened Serbia's largest power plant, the Nikola Tesla in Obrenovac.

Flooding had already cut Serbian power generation by 40 percent, forcing the cash-strapped country to boost imports.

"More and more water is getting closer but for the time being the sandbag defense barriers are holding," Tanjug news agency quoted Kostolac general manager Dragan Jovanovic as saying.

"TSUNAMI"

The economic impact of the floods is likely to be huge, devastating the agricultural sector vital to both the Serbian and Bosnian economies.

Vucic said a fire and flooding of surface mines on Friday at the Kolubara coal-fired power plant southwest of Belgrade had caused damage of at least 100 million euros ($137 million).

"These are the kind of waters not seen in 1,000 years, let alone 100," Vucic told a televised cabinet session.
He said 12 bodies had been recovered from Obrenovac after waters dropped from a peak of some three meters (10 feet). At least five more were reported dead elsewhere in Serbia.

In Bosnia, 19 people were confirmed dead, with nine bodies recovered from the northeastern town of Doboj after what the regional police chief described as a "tsunami" of water.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said half the town was still submerged. Soldiers delivered food and medical supplies by truck, boat and bulldozer. Cranes lifted medical workers into some homes and removed stranded residents from others.

Zeljka Cvijanovic, prime minister of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, compared the devastation to Bosnia's 1992-95 war, in which 100,000 people died. "The damage is such that we cannot recall even after the war," she told reporters.

In Croatia, the government said one person had died and two were missing in flooded villages in an eastern corner of the country near Bosnia and Serbia. The army used amphibious vehicles to help evacuate some 3,000 people.

"I carried my kids out on my back, then waited 12 hours to be rescued myself," said 40-year-old Obrenovac resident Dragan Todorovic, who spent the night in a Belgrade sports hall with dozens of other families. "The house was new, built two years ago for 100,000 euros. What now?"

Fears of new surge on Serbia's River Sava : Balkan floods

The BBC's Guy Delauney says forecasters are warning that the River Sava is set to peak again in Serbia on Sunday evening

Emergency workers in Serbia are preparing for a "flood wave" on one of the country's main rivers.

Water levels on the River Sava are expected to peak later, threatening the country's biggest power plant.
It comes after the worst floods in the Balkans for decades left more than 35 dead and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

In Bosnia-Hercegovina, landslides have buried houses and disturbed landmines laid during the war in the 1990s. The floods are also affecting Croatia.

Aerial footage showed flooding near Serbia Tesla power plant

Three months' worth of rain fell on the region in just a few days, causing rivers to burst their banks and sweep into people's homes.
Flood alerts are still in place in many areas of Serbia and northern Bosnia, according to the EU Floods Directive.
Twelve bodies were recovered from the Serbian town of Obrenovac on Sunday, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said. It takes the toll in Serbia to 17.
Meanwhile at least 19 people at believed to have died in Bosnia. The authorities have warned that the death toll could still rise.

'Solidarity'

The rain has finally stopped in Belgrade, reports the BBC's Guy Delauney in the Serbian capital.
But officials fear water flowing from neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia could cause a "flood wave" on the River Sava on Sunday evening.
Emergency workers and volunteers have stacked sandbags along the river in Belgrade and other towns such as Sabac and Sremska Mitrovica.
Source: BBC News