Rescuers in Bosnia search for people missing in deadly floods

At least 13 people have been killed in the Jablanica area due to flash floods and landslides.

Rescue teams are digging through rubble and searching for people missing after the worst flash floods and landslides in years hit parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens.

The spokesperson for the government of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, Darko Juka, said on Saturday that 13 people were killed in the Jablanica area due to the collapse of a hill, landslides and floods in the region.

“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 at a news conference. The Jablanica area is 70km (43.5 miles) southwest of the capital, Sarajevo.

Earlier on Saturday, N1 TV had reported 21 people had died and dozens were missing.

A spokesperson for the Mountain Rescue Service, whose teams are involved in the searches, said some villages were still inaccessible and “we don’t know what we will find there.”

Heavy rain overnight halted rescue efforts before they resumed on Saturday, Bosnian media reported.

Al Jazeera’s Arduana Pribinja, reporting from 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.

A drone view shows a flooded residential area and mosque in Donja Jablanica on October 4, 2024 [Amel Emric/Reuters]

In Donja Jablanica, many houses were under rubble.

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.

Pribinja said public anger is now shifting towards the government because some suspect “human factors” contributed to the tragedy.

“There is a quarry here, … and it seems that the sudden rainfall stripped the stone and rubble that triggered the landslide,” she said.

Bosnia’s Central Election Commission decided to postpone local elections this weekend in municipalities affected by the floods but to carry on with voting elsewhere.

The Bosnian Football Association has postponed all matches across the country.

Meteorologists say extreme weather can be attributed to climate change. Human-caused climate change, for example, increases the intensity of rainfall because warm air holds more moisture.

This summer, the Balkans were also hit by long-lasting record temperatures, causing a drought. Scientists said the dried-out land has hampered the absorption of floodwaters.

Flooding was also reported in Croatia and Montenegro this week but caused less damage and no fatalities.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies