A night of heavy rainfall left at least 16 people dead and large parts of southern Bosnia under water or smothered by landslides, the authorities said on Friday.
Fourteen people died in the municipality of Jablanica, about 50 miles southwest of the capital, Sarajevo, officials told a local television news channel, N1. In Fojnica, a town 36 miles west of the capital, two people were confirmed dead.
The death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble, Zukan Helez, defense minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Al Jazeera Balkans. The European Union Force in Bosnia deployed helicopters, an engineering unit and a special rescue unit for flooding to the area, he said. A British special-unit team, which was on a training mission in Bosnia, was also pulled into the rescue effort.
“Currently the worst situation is in Jablanica,” Mr. Helez said. “Our priority right now is saving people who are alive, and stuck in rubble.”
Drone footage and photographs of the disaster areas showed a submerged mosque with only the minaret visible above the water. In another, a greenhouse floated on floodwaters. In many towns and neighborhoods, only the roofs of homes were visible. Landslides had swept away roads, including a main highway. A mudslide tore apart a railway line.
“These are apocalyptic scenes,” Renato Pejak, the mayor of the Kresevo municipality, told local television. Streams had swelled into rivers that carried away bridges, he said, adding that even the area’s older residents “do not remember that so much rain fell in a short period of time.”
Neighboring Croatia also saw heavy overnight rain, with at least 10 houses destroyed, the authorities said. No casualties had been reported.
With rescue workers unable to reach the worst-affected towns and villages, locals worked through the night to try to help their neighbors, N1 television reported. Small villages, where many residents are elderly, bore the brunt of the damage and were cut off.
Deputy Prime Minister Vojin Mijatovic declared a state disaster, adding that the government had formed a crisis response team and set aside 20 million Bosnian marks (about $11.2 million).
The last time Bosnia experienced a disaster like this was in 2014, when catastrophic floods left 33 people dead in southeastern Europe. Bosnia’s government has been slow to implement a strategy drawn up in the aftermath of that disaster, said Tihomir Dakic, president of the Center for the Environment, a local nonprofit group.
A slow response, coupled with an erratic climate, could make disasters like this more damaging, he said.
Bosnia has just emerged from one if its driest summers, with drought conditions reported in some parts of the country, Mr. Dakic said. In addition, snowfall has decreased in recent years. As the country becomes drier, the ground has become harder, making it more difficult for it to absorb water, especially flash floods like these, he added.
“Extremes are happening,” he said.
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