Bosnia experiences worst flooding in at least 120 years

Paul Katula

12 years ago

At least 43 people have been reported dead and tens of thousands have left their homes in Bosnia, as a rare disturbance in the jet stream closed off and stalled a swirling area of low pressure over the Balkans, the BBC reports. The counter-clockwise rotation of the system resembles a hurricane, but there’s no eye.

#490763715 / gettyimages.com

A view of a landslide and floodwaters around houses in the village of Topcic Polje, near the central Bosnian town of Zenica, on May 15, 2014. The flooding in Serbia and Bosnia has left thousands of people without power. In Bosnia, hundreds of homes were cut off or flooded after the Miljacka River, which runs through Sarajevo, broke its banks. Some 3,500 homes in the capital were left without power. Authorities said emergency workers were supplying food and medicines to those who could not leave their homes. (ELVIS BARUKCIC / AFP / Getty Images)

Schools in the affected regions have been forced to close, Agence France Presse reported, while the BBC also reported that the rain had stopped by Sunday afternoon.

“This is the greatest flooding disaster ever,” the New York Times quoted Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia as saying. “Not only in the past 100 years; this has never happened in Serbia’s history.”

As the Sava River swells, many more communities could be enveloped in floodwaters. However, meteorologists expect the swell to subside by May 21. Then the cleanup will begin.