The pictures on my Twitter feed are mind boggling:
Heavy rains beginning earlier the week have triggered enormous floods, many landslides, massive power outages and stranded populations in Serbia and Bosnia-Hersegovina. Today the flooding spread to parts of Croatia, which so far has been relatively unaffected and in fact was one of the first countries to send help.
More pictures and news links below the fold.
I'm using these twitter feeds (Twitter is my go-to source for breaking news):
#Serbia Floods #Bosnia Floods
and added today: #CroatiaFloods
This map was published yesterday showing the extent of the flooding; I'm not sure if there's an update for today:
If so, it would have to include areas like this:
You probably haven't heard too much about it, because US news has other things on its mind, I guess. So look to the Guardian, Al Jazeera, the blogs etc. for updates:
http://www.aljazeera.com/...
http://thinkprogress.org/...
http://www.theguardian.com/...
This BBC article mentions one specific hazard - that the flooding and landslides could unearth landmines left over from the Yugoslavian wars of the mid-1990s:
http://www.bbc.com/...
Reading the local tweets, I sensed a real feeling of desperation and being ignored by the world. Many were begging for retweets just to get the attention of someone who could send a helicopter. That has tapered off now as help is being sent, although they probably need much more. One interesting thing, as you know this area of the world was torn apart with violent conflict in the mid-1990s. Today they seem to be reuniting to overcome the catastrophe. Wonders never cease (the article also lists places where has come from):
THANK YOU ALL: The time when the Balkans got united
To keep the diary from being too long, I'll post more pictures and video tweets in the comments. I just have to get this out there. Oh yeah - is this climate change? Perhaps, but what do I know...
7:15 PM PT: More links - aid, donations, live blog
I'm wary of posting donation links because I don't have a good way to vet them, but links to the Croation Red Cross:
http://www.chasingthedonkey.com/...
The hastag #SupportSerbiaandBosnia is more focused on donations and aid than the news feeds I posted above: https://twitter.com/...
The Balkanist magazine has a live blog, with updates and more stunning photos (scroll down for animal rescues, keep a box of tissues handy): http://balkanist.net/...
I will add more as I find them.
8:13 PM PT: Climate Change - the EU goes there. From a summary article on Aljazeera America: http://america.aljazeera.com/...
"The EU has said that flood hazards may increase in coming years as a result of climate change, and a recent report found that the frequency of severe flooding across Europe is set to double by 2050 — and could result in a five-fold increase in annual economic losses from the floods.
"The EU spent about 4.9 billion euros [$6.7 billion] on average for flood-related costs between 2000-2012. But based on the report’s rainfall projections, that number will likely increase to 23.5 billion euros [$32.1 billion] by 2050."