Just choked dinner and this isn't helping wash it down.
Related: Trickle of Balkan Stories
"Bosnia flooding triggers landslides, levels town" by Sabina Niksic and Jovana Gec | Associated Press May 19, 2014
BRCKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Flood waters triggered more than 3,000 landslides across the Balkans on Sunday, laying waste to entire towns and villages and disturbing land mines left over from the region’s 1990s war, along with warning signs that marked the unexploded weapons.
Also see: A Landslide and Flood of Afghanistan Articles
The Balkans’ worst flooding since record keeping began forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and threatened to inundate Serbia’s main power plant, which supplies electricity to a third of the country and most of the capital, Belgrade.
Authorities organized a frenzied helicopter airlift to get terrified families to safety before the water swallowed up their homes. Many were plucked from rooftops.
Flood waters receded Sunday in some locations, laying bare the full scale of the damage. Elsewhere, emergency management officials warned that the water would keep rising into Sunday night.
‘‘The situation is catastrophic,’’ said Bosnia’s refugee minister, Adil Osmanovic.
Three months’ worth of rain fell on the region in three days, producing the worst floods since rainfall measurements began 120 years ago. At least two dozen people have died, with more casualties expected.
The rain caused an estimated 2,100 landslides that covered roads, homes, and whole villages throughout hilly Bosnia. Another 1,000 landslides were reported in Serbia.
The cities of Orasje and Brcko in northeast Bosnia, where the Sava River forms the natural border with Croatia, were in danger of being overwhelmed. Officials in Brcko ordered six villages to be evacuated.
Rescuers urged people to go to the balconies or rooftops of their houses with bright fabric to make themselves visible.
********
In Serbia, authorities braced for high water that could last for several more days....
The floods and landslides raised fears about the estimated 1 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. But the weather toppled warning signs and, in many cases, dislodged the mines.
Beyond the immediate danger to Bosnians, any loose mines could also create an international problem if flood waters carry the explosives downstream. Experts warned that mines could travel through half of southeast Europe or get stuck in the turbines of a hydroelectric dam.
And then the propaganda pre$$ can blame terrorists! Or Russia!
From the air, the northeastern third of Bosnia resembled a huge muddy lake, with houses, roads, and rail lines submerged. Officials say about a million people — more than a quarter of the country’s population — live in the worst-affected areas.
The hillside village of Horozovina, close to the northeastern town of Tuzla, was nearly split in two by a landslide that swallowed eight houses. More than 100 other houses were under threat from the restless earth. Residents told stories of narrow escapes from injury or death.
‘‘I am homeless. I have nothing left, not even a toothpick,’’ Mesan Ikanovic said. ‘‘I ran out of the house barefoot, carrying children in my arms.’’
Ikanovic said 10 minutes separated him and his family from likely death. He carried his 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to safety.
He said he had secured a mortgage and moved in only last year. ‘‘Now I have nothing,’’ he said. ‘‘Where will I go now? Where will we live?’’
Semid Ivilic’s house in the lower part of the village was still standing. But looking up at the mass of earth and rubble that engulfed his neighbors’ homes, he said he was worried.
‘‘Nobody is coming to help us,’’ he said.
The final person to evacuate a village near Brcko said he had lost everything he valued....
Lives changed forever that will soon be forgotten.
--more--"
"Dozen communities evacuated along Sava River in Serbia; Crews struggling to keep water from key power plant" by Dusan Stojanovic | Associated Press May 20, 2014
BELGRADE — Serbian authorities ordered the urgent evacuation of 12 communities along the raging Sava River on Monday, including one where soldiers, police, and volunteers have been working around the clock to protect Serbia’s main power plant.
The coal-fired Nikola Tesla power plant supplies electricity for half of Serbia and most of Belgrade. It is in the flood-hit town of Obrenovac, 16 miles upstream of the capital. Emergency crews have so far defended the power plant by building high walls of sandbags but it’s not clear those will withstand the force of an upcoming river surge.
What kind of power plant is it?
Workers were also struggling to divert floodwaters from the Kostolac power plant, on the Danube River east of Belgrade, which officials said produces about a fifth of the country’s electricity.
Serbian police chief Nebojsa Stefanovic ordered Obrenovac completely evacuated of civilians, along with 11 villages along the Sava. Some 300 people were evacuated from Obrenovac by helicopter Monday, authorities said.
Serbia and Bosnia are struggling with the worst flooding in southeastern Europe in more than a century.
Maybe ever, but let's not quibble in the lifeboat.
At least 35 people have died in five days of flooding caused by unprecedented torrential rain.
And the snowmelt from a record-setting winter.
Entire towns and villages are under water, thousands of hills have crumpled into landslides, and tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes.
The death toll is expected to rise as floodwaters recede.
The situation in Obrenovac was critical Monday, said Predrag Maric, a Serbian official. The Sava flood wave was expected to begin to reach Obrenovac and Belgrade later Monday and peak by Wednesday.
Before Monday’s order, some 7,800 people were already evacuated from the town, where many homes were submerged. But some 2,000 people were still believed trapped in the higher floors of buildings there, without power or phone lines.
In Bosnia, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija called the flood damage ‘‘immense’’ and compared it to the carnage during the country’s 1992-95 war, which killed at least 100,000 people and left millions homeless.
I object to the comparison. One is a natural event, regardless of what you think of fart mist; the other is purely a manmade decision to murder.
He said the flooding had destroyed about 100,000 houses and 230 schools and hospitals and left a million people without drinking water.
‘‘The only difference from the war is that fewer people have died,’’ he said. ‘‘The country is devastated . . . this is something that no war in the history of this country’’ ever accomplished.
Wow.
In Orasje, a Bosnian border town, frantic efforts were being made to prevent the Sava from surging through broken barriers. Ideas included dropping old trucks from helicopters or covering the gaps with wire frames and then reinforcing with sandbags.
The emergency commander in the town, Fahrudin Solak, said the decaying corpses of drowned farm animals now represented a major health risk.
‘‘We are sending out mobile incinerators and we have asked for international assistance, to send us more incinerators to prevent diseases,’’ he said.
Floods have also triggered more than 3,000 landslides across the Balkans. Aside from sweeping away home and barns, the landslides have carried land mines left over from the region’s war, along with their warning signs, to entirely new, often unknown, locations.
Laying those things all over the place looks like a bad move now.
‘‘Landslides and land mines devastated very fertile land,’’ Lagumdzija said.
Rescue crews from across Europe were using helicopters, canoes, and bulldozers to carry people from the stricken areas, although many residents were refusing to leave their homes, including many elderly people.
An estimated 10,000 soldiers were delivering food and medical supplies to the region as rescue crews from Russia, Slovenia, and Luxembourg worked alongside local teams.
Russians winning more good will in the world.
Austria, Britain, Israel, and Macedonia also are sending help and supplies.
That makes me suspicious, sorry.
--more--"
Also see: Mladic starts defense at UN genocide trial
Related: Mladic Moved to U.N. Cell
Go back far enough an you will see the Al-CIA-Duh connections.
Mladic better be careful or he will end up like this guy.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Tons of drowned livestock a new Balkan threat" by Amel Emric | Associated Press May 21, 2014
Interesting.
My printed headline says "Dead animals litter Balkans as flooding eases" I don't know if that is an omen for an "updated" washout or..... I only mention it because I had underlined a phrase for comment later.
SAMAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A new calamity emerged Tuesday in the flood-hit Balkans as rescue workers battled overflowing rivers — and were confronted by wastelands of drowned livestock.
Gruesome.
As the rainfall stopped and temperatures rose, the withdrawing floodwaters revealed a harrowing sight: thousands of dead cows, pigs, sheep, dogs, and other animals left behind as their panicked owners fled.
‘‘There are tons of dead animals that we must dispose of,’’ Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told a government meeting.
The record flooding in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia in the past week has forced half a million people from their homes and led to at least 44 deaths: 22 in Bosnia, 20 in Serbia, and 2 in Croatia. Authorities said the death toll could rise.
It is rising even as the floodwaters recede(?).
Bosnia declared Tuesday a day of mourning while Serbia said it would hold three days of mourning starting Wednesday.
In the northern Bosnian town of Samac, troops used ropes to pull nearly 400 dead cows out of a barn and drove the carcasses away on trucks.
In Samac, like many Bosnian and Serbian towns, waters rose within hours, racing into yards and homes without warning. Farmers often had no time to free their livestock from barns or fenced fields, so that they could attempt to swim to safety.
Many dead animals were found slumped over the metal fences they had tried to jump over.
‘‘Dead animals are a special problem and those have to be removed and destroyed properly,’’ said Bosnia’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Zeljko Ler.
Serbia’s senior veterinarian, Sanja Celbicanin, said 140 tons of drowned animals had been destroyed so far but much more work lay ahead. Some 1,900 sheep and lambs died in just one area of central Serbia and teams could work only in areas deemed safe by police, she said, urging residents not to touch any dead animals.
Residents in both countries were told not to return to their homes before teams disinfect the area and not to eat any food from flooded gardens, orchards, or barns.
Ler warned that acute stomach ailments and other diseases, including hepatitis and typhoid, often spread after flooding.
‘‘We are warning the population to drink only boiled or bottled water,’’ he said.
Water levels were still rising Tuesday in parts of northern Bosnia, particularly the town of Orasje, with flood levels exceeding one yard. Rescuers led some residents to safety and delivered aid to other residents who stayed in upper floors of their homes.
That's the phrase I latched onto, and honestly, I'm tired of the deception in the articles, the deceiving headlines, and the outright lying in general!
The REAL CRISES and DISASTERS are MINIMIZED by government and their media mouthpieces while SELF-CREATED ENTITIES like the "terrorists" and PHANTOM FICTIONS like "global warming" are trumpeted.
That's the sad 21st-century reality. Governments and those that control them have been looting and lying for so long and creating crises to advance their agenda that they don't know how to respond in a real emergency. The "terrorists" aren't out there because the "terrorists" always turn out to be directed or framed by US or other western intelligence agencies (with accompanying security drills gone live or crisis actor drills reported as real).
The European Commission said nearly 400 relief workers have been deployed in Serbia and Bosnia.
What, no troops like in Africa?
The flooding was still threatening Serbia’s biggest power plant in the town of Obrenovac on the River Sava, a tributary to Europe’s second-biggest river, the Danube. Serbian authorities responding to rising Danube water levels ordered the evacuation of two more villages Tuesday.
I haven't got an answer to my question from the obfuscating and omitting propaganda pre$$, but I am concerned that may be a NUCLEAR plant. They do put them near water, you know.
--more--"
That was all perfect verbatim and I got it down all at once.
