Death toll in worst Bosnian floods in years rises to 16, officials say

DONJA JABLANICA, Bosnia - At least 16 people died in floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday and many others were missing as torrential rain and landslides destroyed homes, roads and bridges across the centre of the country, officials said.

The municipality of Jablanica, about 70 km (43 miles) southwest of the capital Sarajevo, where the deaths were reported, was completely cut off after road and railway links were destroyed.

Sixteen people were killed, most of them in the Jablanica area, cantonal interior ministry spokesperson Ljudevit Maric, told Reuters. "Search for the missing continues," he said.

Bosnia's Civil Defense said between 20 and 40 people were listed as missing as they were either trapped under the rubble of carried away by flooding, N1 TV reported.

Bosnia's inter-ethnic presidency - a Bosniak, Serb and Croat tripartite - said it requested military help for the wider Jablanica area, and engineers, rescue units and a helicopter were deployed, including some to rescue 17 people from a mental hospital.

Edin Forto, the transportation minister of the Bosniak-Croat federation, said the situation in the affected areas was critical.

"The flash flood ripped out entire houses, together with concrete slabs and foundations and carried them away... I have never seen anything like this," he said.

Some houses had been reduced to rubble by landslides, in what appeared to be Bosnia's worst flooding since at least 2014, when more than 20 died in floods.

"In some cases only parts of roofs can be seen. I cannot remember the crisis of such a magnitude since the (1992-1995) war," said Darko Jukan, a spokesman for the regional government.

At an emergency session, Bosnia's central government said it would allocate funds for the recovery of the affected areas.

The government of the Bosniak-Croat Federation declared a state of natural disaster in the flood-affected areas and set up a crisis committee to help alleviate the situation there.

Neighbouring Croatia and Serbia also offered Bosnia assistance in rescue operations.

Aldin Brasnjic, the head of the Civil Defence administration in the Bosniak-Croat federation, said rescuers could not reach a number of villages due to blocked roads and that upcoming rains would make their efforts more difficult.

"The search for the missing is priority at the moment. We think we will be able to complete this today and tomorrow," he said.

In a video shared with Reuters on Friday, Robert Oroz showed his village of Luke, near the town of Fojnica in central Bosnia, flooded and littered with tree trunks, logs, branches and debris.

He said water receded for some time but started to rise again.

"Situation is disastrous ... A smokehouse for meat was here, it's not any more," Oroz said.

The town of Kiseljak in central Bosnia was inundated after a river burst its banks. Brown water lapped at the doors of businesses and homes, drone footage taken by Reuters showed, although the waters had begun to recede on Friday afternoon.

Later on Friday, Bosnia's election commission decided to postpone local elections set for this weekend in municipalities affected by floods, but to carry on with voting elsewhere.

The floods in Bosnia came after an unprecedented summer drought which caused many rivers and lakes to dry up, and affected agriculture and water supply to urban areas throughout the Balkans and most of Europe.

Meteorologists said extreme weather changes can be attributed to climate change.

Neighbouring Croatia was also hit by floods on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. Authorities issued a severe weather warning for the Adriatic coast and central regions of the country.

Montenegro and Serbia issued similar warnings.

-(Reuters)