A week of devastating floods and landslides in the Balkans has killed at least 45 people. More rainfall could be on its way
Most of the damage has been in Serbia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thousands of properties have been wrecked, and 50,000 people have been evacuated. Much of the mayhem has resulted from at least 300 reported landslides and mudslides. There are also reports that the landslides will dislodge some of the 120,000 unexploded mines planted during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
The region has suffered its worst deluge since 1894, with more than 10 centimetres falling on 14 and 15 May. The UK Met Office says a slow-moving area of low pressure prolonged the downpour.
The bad weather has now moved away east, so the Met Office says the rest of this week should be dry. But the longer range forecast "shows the potential for further heavy rainfall next week".
Struggling with rising waters
Most of the flooding has been along the Sava and Drina rivers. These form the borders between Serbia and Bosnia, and ultimately drain into the Danube at the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vučić warned on Sunday that the Sava remains the biggest threat, and could bring another surge of floods by Wednesday. The swollen waters of the Sava also threaten the TPP Nikola Tesla power station, which supplies half of Serbia's electricity.
"Floods are not unusual, and there is a tradition and infrastructure to deal with them, but this one was virtually unprecedented," says Vladimir Jankovic of the University of Manchester, UK.
While severe floods are expected to become more common as a result of climate change, there is no way to know whether climate change contributed to these floods, says Stéphane Isoard of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark.
However, Isoard says the ever-increasing amount of concrete covering the ground has probably contributed. "It means the water doesn't infiltrate soil and drain away, but runs instead on the surface." Houses have also been built in at-risk areas.
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