Rescue workers are sifting through wreckage and seeking for missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the worst flash floods and landslides in years killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more.
Darko Juka, spokesperson for the administration of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, stated on Saturday that 13 persons were killed in the Jablanica area as a result of a hill fall, landslides, and flooding.
“On Friday, we reported a figure of 16, but after reviewing the data and assessing the situation on the ground, the number has been corrected to 13,” Juka said during a news conference.
The Jablanica area lies 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) southwest of Sarajevo, the capital. Earlier Saturday, N1 TV reported that 21 people had killed and several were missing.
A representative for the Mountain Rescue Service, whose teams are involved in the searches, stated that some communities were still unreachable and “we don’t know what we will find there.”
Heavy rain overnight halted rescue efforts before they resumed on Saturday, Bosnian media reported
the village of Donja Jablanica, said people in the area were in “deep shock”, adding that the floods and landslides that hit on Friday had caught many by surprise.“People here told me that everything happened too fast and they didn’t have time to evacuate,” she said.
Alka Glusic, 74, lost a brother and his three immediate family members. She had stayed in another house with her sister. “That house [her brother’s] is gone now. There is no one there,” Glusic told the Reuters news agency