Land-mine risk
Flooding dislodges explosives from 1990s Balkans war; Bosnia, Serbia cope with 3,000 landslides
More than 3,000 landslides were triggered by floodwaters in the Balkans yesterday. At least two dozen people were killed, and land mines from the region’s war in the 1990s were unearthed, posing a risk. •
BRCKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Floodwaters triggered more than 3,000 landslides across the Balkans yesterday, laying waste to entire towns and villages and disturbing both land mines left from the region’s 1990s war and warning signs that marked the unexploded weapons.
The Balkans’ worst flooding since record keeping began forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and threatened to inundate Serbia’s main power plant, which supplies electricity to a third of the country and most of the capital, Belgrade.
Authorities organized a frenzied helicopter airlift to get terrified families to safety before the water swallowed their homes. Many were plucked from roofs.
Floodwaters receded yesterday in some locations, laying bare the full scale of the damage. Elsewhere, emergency-management officials warned that the water would keep rising into last night.
“The situation is catastrophic,” said Bosnia’s refugee minister, Adil Osmanovic.
Three months’ worth of rain fell on the region in three days, producing the worst floods since rainfall measurements began 120 years ago. At least two dozen people have died, and more
deaths are expected to be discovered.
The rain caused an estimated 2,100 landslides that covered roads, homes and whole villages across hilly Bosnia. In neighboring Serbia, 1,000 landslides were reported.
The cities of Orasje and Brcko in northeastern Bosnia, where the Sava River forms a natural border with Croatia, were in danger of being overwhelmed. Officials in Brcko ordered six villages evacuated.
Brcko Mayor Anto Domic said that unless the Bosnian army is able to reinforce from the air, the city will be flooded completely. He called for the Defense Ministry to use helicopters to lower steel barriers that could be backed by sandbags to contain the water.
“It is a very demanding task,” he said, acknowledging that officials would have no other way to protect the port city of more than 70,000 residents.
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday that 12 bodies had been found in Obrenovac, site of the coalfired Nikola Tesla power plant, Serbia’s biggest. Parts of the plant and a nearby mine that provides its fuel were underwater.
The floods and landslides raised fears about the estimated 1 million land mines planted during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. Nearly 120,000 of the unexploded devices remain in more than 9,400 carefully marked minefields. But the weather toppled warning signs and, in many cases, dislodged the mines.
Beyond the immediate danger to Bosnians, any loose mines also could create an international problem if floodwaters carry the explosives downstream. Experts warned that mines could travel through half of southeastern Europe or get stuck in the turbines of a hydroelectric dam.
In inundated northeastern Bosnia, the hillside village of Horozovina, close to the city of Tuzla, was practically split in two by a landslide that swallowed eight houses. More than 100 other houses were under threat from the restless earth. Residents told stories of narrow escapes from injury or death.
“I am homeless. I have nothing left, not even a toothpick,” Mesan Ikanovic said. “I ran out of the house barefoot, carrying children in my arms.”
Large parts of eastern Croatia also were underwater.
In Serbia, more than 20,000 people have been forced from their homes.