Government declares three-day mourning

BELGRADE - The Serbian government on Tuesday declared a three-day period of mourning for May 21-23 for the many victims of the catastrophic floods in Serbia.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that the state of emergency declared across the country could end on Friday.

The scale of the disaster caused by the floods is ten times larger in Serbia than in other countries of the region, Vucic said on Tuesday, expressing hope that this will not be reflected by the number of casualties.

During the open-door part of Tuesday's government session, Vucic said that the bodies of 14 victims have been found so far in Obrenovac, a municipality completely submerged by torrential floods on May 15 at dawn.

They will be autopsied to determine whether they were among the casualties of the floods or died of natural causes, he said, adding that one person who had been reported missing in Varvarin has been found.

At one moment, the disaster seemed to be coming to an end as the weather conditions improved and the level of the River Sava dropped, Vucic said.

However, the Zabrezje village had to be evacuated completely as the water started coming in from behind the flood defence structures in Obrenovac (after breaching barriers in Croatia), leaving the sandbag barriers soaked, he said.

Additional measures have been taken to protect units A and B of the Nikola Tesla coal-fired power plant, which is now practically protected by flood barriers, Vucic said.

Addressing a press conference after the session, Vucic said that the damage caused by the floods will exceed 0.64 percent of the national GDP.

The percentage is higher than that - not including damage to agriculture, infrastructure...