[1/4]A drone view shows a flooded residential area and in Donja Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 4, 2024.REUTERS/Amel Emric Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Neighbouring Croatia and Serbia also offered Bosnia assistance in rescue operations.
Aldin Brasnjic, the head of the Civil Defence administration in the Bosniak-Croat federation, said rescuers could not reach a number of villages due to blocked roads and that upcoming rains would make their efforts more difficult.
“The search for the missing is priority at the moment. We think we will be able to complete this today and tomorrow,” he said.
In a video shared with Reuters on Friday, Robert Oroz showed his village of Luke, near the town of Fojnica in central Bosnia, flooded and littered with tree trunks, logs, branches and debris.
He said water receded for some time but started to rise again.
“Situation is disastrous … A smokehouse for meat was here, it’s not any more,” Oroz said.
The town of Kiseljak in central Bosnia was inundated after a river burst its banks. Brown water lapped at the doors of businesses and homes, drone footage taken by Reuters showed, although the waters had begun to recede on Friday afternoon.
Later on Friday, Bosnia’s election commission decided to postpone local elections set for this weekend in municipalities affected by floods, but to carry on with voting elsewhere.
The floods in Bosnia came after an unprecedented summer drought which caused many rivers and lakes to dry up, and affected agriculture and water supply to urban areas throughout the Balkans and most of Europe.
Meteorologists said extreme weather changes can be attributed to climate change.
Neighbouring Croatia was also hit by floods on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. Authorities issued a severe weather warning for the Adriatic coast and central regions of the country.
Montenegro and Serbia issued similar warnings.
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Reporting by Amel Emric in Kiseljak and Ivana Sekularac; Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Edward McAllister, Gareth Jones, Hugh Lawson, Susan Fenton and Jonathan Oatis
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Source link : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-five-feared-dead-bosnian-floods-official-says-2024-10-04/
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 19:24:58
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