Floods and landslides claim 18 lives

Flash floods and landslides in central Bosnia-Herzegovina killed at least 18 people, cut off towns and villages, and reportedly left houses nearly submerged in some places.

Some of the worst scenes occurred in the area around Jablanica, a town on the main road between the cities of Mostar and the capital Sarajevo, about 70 km (40 miles) to the northeast.

Several more people were reported missing and a state of emergency was declared.

Development Minister Vojin Mijatovic said the country had experienced a terrible disaster and called for calm.

Search and rescue work continues, and more than a dozen people remain missing.

On Sunday, two more bodies were found in the village of Donja Jablanica.

Heavy rain apparently triggered a landslide from a quarry above the village, burying houses and causing water levels to rise to the roofline of some buildings.

Rescuers helped clear flooded houses of mud. Teams from Serbia, Croatia and North Macedonia arrived to provide support, and EU countries also sent help.

On Saturday, officials in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton said 13 deaths had been confirmed in the region, up from 16 as previously reported.

Three more deaths were confirmed in the town of Fojnica.

After an overnight storm, rivers burst their banks and aerial photos showed many towns and villages flooded.

Roads, bridges and railway tracks were washed away or blocked by debris, while landslides buried houses up to their upper floors in rock and earth.

The main M-17 line, which runs along the Neretva River, was covered in debris near Jablanica and a 17 km stretch of railway between nearby Ostrozac and Grabovica in the west was badly damaged. A 200 m long section of the road remained suspended in the air due to a landslide near the river south of Jablanica.

The local authority in the Herzegovina-Neretva canton warned drivers to avoid dangerous roads around Jablanica.

Further east along the Neretva River, a homeowner told Bosnian media that water flooded his house at 3:30 a.m. Friday and that they barely managed to save their son before they fled to neighbors and saw their house collapsed.

Meanwhile, 20 km west of the capital around Kiseljak, a deluge of water flooded streets and left cars submerged.

The floods were not limited to Bosnia. In neighboring Montenegro, roads were washed away and the village of Komarnica was cut off.

Water levels also rose in some of Croatia’s rivers and the government in Zagreb said there was a risk of flooding in some areas in the city of Karlovac near the Kupa River.

Floods hit large parts of central Europe last month, with the worst devastation seen in Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said a four-day period was the wettest ever recorded in the region. They said the floods have been made worse by climate change.

Europe is the continent that is warming the fastest. According to the Copernicus climate service, the last five years have been on average about 2.3°C warmer than in the second half of the 19th century.