At least 30 dead in massive flooding in Bosnia, Serbia

BELGRADE: The heaviest rains in more than a century have sparked floods across Bosnia and Serbia, claiming at least 30 lives and leading to the evacuation so far of more than 16,000 from flooded villages, officials said Saturday.

"More than 20 corpses have so far been brought to the city´s morgue," the mayor of the northern Bosnian town Doboj, Obren Petrovic, told Bosnia´s FTV public broadcaster.

Another victim drowned in the town of Samac, police chief Gojko Vasic was quoted by Fena news agency as saying.

And the bodies of two elderly women were found in the town of Maglaj after the waters withdrew, the civil protection chief there told reporters.

Four flood victims had been found in Bosnia and three in Serbia on Friday. And the death toll could rise.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told reporters that "rescuers have started recovering dead bodies from flooded areas, but we will not make the number public before the complete withdrawal of the water."

Hardest hit has been the town of Obrenovac, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Belgrade, where the entire town is now being evacuated amid warnings of more flooding, Predrag Maric of the emergency services said.

Reporters were banned from entering the town, but a local television channel broadcast footage from a helicopter showing that most of the city was flooded, with water swamping the lower floors of six-storey buildings.

Water defences gave way outside Obrenovac near a power plant that produces about half of Serbia´s electricity, prompting authorities to urge citizens to limit their use of electricity.

Some 78,000 homes in Serbia and 60,000 in Bosnia have no power at all, authorities said.

Sirens wailed in the nearby town of Baric as police ordered its 7,000 inhabitants to leave. An AFP photographer saw military and police helicopters evacuating women and children, while others were leaving the town by car or walking towards buses carrying bags with some of their belongings.

The European Commission said 14 EU countries were sending aid including helicopters and motorboats, as well as food and medicine, to the flooded Balkan countries. (AFP)