DOZENS OF FATALITIES IN WORST EVER BALKAN FLOODING - DISASTER CREATES LAND MINE RISKS

Photo Tanjug, Twitter - Russia Today

DAILY MAIL - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Record-high floods and landslides have swept away people, homes and roads in the Balkans over the past week, but in Bosnia another deadly menace is hiding in the flood rubble: land mines. 

 

Authorities have spent two decades trying to unearth the 1 million land mines planted during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Before the floods, nearly 120,000 remained in 9,416 marked minefields.  Then floods washed away river banks and fueled landslides that have unearthed minefield warning signs and, in many cases, the unexploded booby traps themselves.
 

Officials at Bosnia's Mine Action Center say their agency will deploy mine-hunting scouts starting Monday and report that mines already are appearing in unexpected places. They fear that some could float all the way to the Black Sea.

 

Source

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-2631775/Bosnia-floods-create-new-land-risk-Balkans.html

 

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RUSSIA TODAY - The overall death toll in the unprecedented floods that have raged across the Balkans has reached 44, as more bodies were recovered from the Serbian town of Obrenovac on Sunday. 

 

Rescue teams and humanitarian aid have come to Serbia and neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina from 14 European Union member-states. Kristalina Georgieva, the EU's humanitarian aid chief, said it was a “perfect demonstration of European solidarity.”   Russian relief workers in Serbia have evacuated more than 2,100 people over two days, including 576 children from flooded areas. 

 

 On Sunday, two Russian cargo planes brought food, generators and rescue boats to the disaster-struck country. “When the [Russian] crew arrived, a bigger part of the town was under water, in some of the areas water was reaching the roofs,” said Aleksandr Savoskin, assistant to the director of the Russian-Serbian humanitarian center. “What aggravated the situation was the fact that roads turned into streams, and evacuation was only possible by boat or helicopter.”  

 

In total, over 24,000 people in Serbia have been evacuated as a result of several days of heavy rains, according to Sunday’s estimate announced by the head of the sector for emergency situations at the country’s Interior Ministry, Predrag Maric.

 

Read more and see pictures of the flooding

http://rt.com/news/159772-balkans-flood-death-toll/

 

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