Flooding after heavy rains in Kiseljak, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 4, 2024 (AFP / Elvis BARUKCIC)
At least 16 people died in central Bosnia on Friday after floods and landslides caused by heavy rains took several villages by surprise.
A few hours after an initial assessment of 14 bodies found, regional police spokesperson Ljudevit Marica confirmed to AFP that two new people had been found dead.
“It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying,” Emir Arfadzan, a resident of the village of Donja Jablanica, most affected by the floods, told AFP.
“Several cubic meters of water and thousands of tons of rubble fell on the village. Around ten houses were destroyed,” adds this visibly angry 62-year-old man. “People didn’t have time to… They only had a few seconds to flee. But we managed to save a child.”
This village, located about 70km southwest of Sarajevo, was hardest hit by floods and landslides. Cut off from the world for several hours in the morning, it was finally able to be reached by military vehicles and civil protection, who discovered a devastated landscape.
Its mosque was almost engulfed by water, and only the dome and the minaret protruded, AFP journalists noted.
Several residents will not be able to return home Friday evening. “They marked our house with a cross, which means we have to leave,” explains Mr. Arfadzan, who is preparing to find refuge with his son in the town of Konjic, a few kilometers away.
According to national television BHRT, two other people died in the Fojnica region, but this toll could not be verified by AFP.
– Army –
The Bosnian federal presidency has sent the army to the region. “Engineering, rescue units and a helicopter of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were urgently mobilized to provide assistance to civil authorities in response to this disaster,” it said in a statement.
The government of the Croat-Muslim entity of Bosnia – one of the three components of the country of which the affected region is part – declared a state of natural disaster.
Flooding after heavy rains in Kiseljak, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 4, 2024 (AFP / Rusmir SMAJILHODZIC)
In images posted by the Bosnian railway service, we can see rails out of order, covered with stones and pieces of wood carried away by the landslides.
Many people were still missing in the afternoon. Injured people were evacuated by a helicopter from the European Union peacekeeping force (EUFOR), according to regional authorities.
– “Biblical Flood” –
In Kiseljak, about thirty kilometers northwest of Sarajevo, several houses, cars and gardens were covered with water in just a few dozen minutes.
“The rain started falling yesterday (Thursday) around 9 p.m. and continued all night,” the city’s mayor, Mladen Misuric-Ramljak, told AFP. “Everything was normal until around 5 a.m., then huge amounts of water arrived.”
Flooding after heavy rains in Kiseljak, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 4, 2024 (AFP / Rusmir SMAJILHODZIC)
“We certainly have several hundred flooded homes. I was born here, I spent my whole life in Kiseljak, and we have never had a flood of this magnitude. I would even dare to say that it is the deluge biblical”, added the Edil. Fortunately, he did not report any casualties in his city.
“These are scenes of apocalypse. Even the oldest inhabitants (…) do not remember that so much rain fell in such a short time, that the small streams were transformed into large rivers” and take away bridges, Renato Pejak, head of the municipality of Kreševo, a few kilometers south of Kiseljak, told local media.
Very significant floods had already hit Bosnia in 2014, causing immense damage estimated at the time at 2 billion euros.
In neighboring Croatia, a red flood alert was issued by authorities around the port of Rijeka, in Istria (west) and in the center of the country.
They warned that flooding could be expected in several towns, as well as power and water outages.
