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Lost In The Flood
United Kingdom Architecture News - Jun 07, 2014 - 12:52 1814 views
On May 13th, a cyclone dubbed Tamara hit southeastern Europe and, over only a few days, doused it with three months’ worth of rainfall. Relentless torrents swelled rivers and tributaries, breaching banks and bursting levees. The brunt of the surge swept through Bosnia, Serbia, and eastern Croatia, toppling bridges, swallowing up towns, and savaging miles of countryside. The governments of Bosnia and Serbia declared states of emergency and deployed rescue teams to evacuate survivors in the worst hit areas—where floodwaters were lapping at roof eaves. Caught by surprise and inadequately warned, residents corralled family members into boats and toward any available elevation, scrambling to save provisions and livestock and heirlooms and pets. For those who had lived through the region’s wars, it was the second time in their lives that they had lost everything.
While crews worked frantically to save the power plant on the outskirts of Obrenovac, which supplies fifty per cent of Serbia’s electricity, the entire town was completely submerged by the Kolubara river. Current estimates put the death toll between sixty-five and seventy-four, while more than a hundred thousand buildings have been destroyed and about a million people affected. Though shelters have been set up, they are filling fast, and are undersupplied. To make matters more exciting, some two thousand landslides in the region have disrupted miles of minefields left over from the wars—as well as the markers designating them.
The socio-economic repercussions will take time to assess, but there are already estimates that the cost of the damage caused by the floods will exceed that of the wars that split Yugoslavia, and is estimated in the billions. The question is: Who cares?...Continue Reading
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