Parliament committee: Floods in Serbia killed 57 people

BELGRADE - The floods that hit Serbia in mid-May killed a total of 57 people, including 23 who drowned, and 31,879 people have been evacuated, the Serbian parliament’s Defense and Internal Affairs Committee said at a meeting they held Wednesday.

Presenting the part of the Serbian government’s report on the flooding that related to the rescue operations of the Interior Ministry (MUP), Aleksandar Nikolic, the ministry’s secretary, told the committee that a total of 2,260 buildings were flooded in Obrenovac, Paracin and Svilajnac, and 1,763 were in danger of flooding.

Evacuation operations saw a daily involvement of 7,300 members of the MUP and the number was highest on May 18 - 9,592.

When it comes to the Ministry of Defense, Secretary of State at the ministry Zoran Djordjevic said that the Serbian Armed Forces evacuated a total of 10,299 people during the flooding, with 2,500 people taken to evacuation centers, of which 690 were temporarily housed in military facilities.

A total of 551 helicopter flights were made, and 10 helicopters, three amphibious vehicle, 43 boats and eight water pumps were engaged every day during the operations.

Four heavy bridges were erected and biological decontaminations were carried out in seven municipalities, Djordjevic said.

Opposition MPs criticized the government’s report, and Balsa Bozovic of the Democratic Party (DS) said his party maintained the stance that a special meeting should be held to discuss everything that had happened with experts and competent officials in local governments.

Bozovic also demanded that those who had drowned in the May floods be named, so as to avoid the possibility of any kind of speculation and guesswork.