Bosnia Balkans flooding rains

Europe|At Least 16 Die as Floods Sweep Through Bosnia

A night of heavy rainfall left at least 16 people dead and large parts of southern Bosnia under water or smothered by landslides, the authorities said on Friday.

Fourteen people died in the municipality of Jablanica, about 50 miles southwest of the capital, Sarajevo, officials told a local television news channel, N1. In Fojnica, a town 36 miles west of the capital, two people were confirmed dead.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble, Zukan Helez, defense minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Al Jazeera Balkans. The European Union Force in Bosnia deployed helicopters, an engineering unit and a special rescue unit for flooding to the area, he said. A British special-unit team, which was on a training mission in Bosnia, was also pulled into the rescue effort.

“Currently the worst situation is in Jablanica,” Mr. Helez said. “Our priority right now is saving people who are alive, and stuck in rubble.”

Drone footage and photographs of the disaster areas showed a submerged mosque with only the minaret visible above the water. In another, a greenhouse floated on floodwaters. In many towns and neighborhoods, only the roofs of homes were visible. Landslides had swept away roads, including a main highway. A mudslide tore apart a railway line.

“These are apocalyptic scenes,” Renato Pejak, the mayor of the Kresevo ​​municipality, told local television. Streams had swelled into rivers that carried away bridges, he said, adding that even the area’s older residents “do not remember that so much rain fell in a short period of time.”