Belgrade - XINHUA
While people of the city of Obrenovac are escaping their homes as water floods them, river Sava is dangerously rising threatening to bring even more damage to the flood struck Serbia. 2,500 people were evacuated from their homes in the flooded town of Obrenovac, some 30 kilometers South of Belgrade, while 1,400 still wait to be rescued, police said. Fireman, police forces and military are still struggling to evacuate citizens of Obrenovac by boats as their town is 90 per cent under water from the river Kolubara that spilled over its banks. Citizens are transported by boats to a hotel from where they are forwarded to their temporary accommodation, while demands for evacuation from the people are being received all the time. Several people as well as rescuers drowned in past three days from floods caused by the heavy rains. Roads and railways in the flooded areas are cut, as well as the power grid in the city of Obrenovac. Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic announced that if Sava raises 30 more centimetres, a large part of Serbia will lose electricity. "We have heavy casualties, of which we will not speak after this is all over. We have a catastrophic and a cataclysmic situation in Obrenovac, and a very difficult situation in Western and Central Serbia", said Vucic at a meeting of the Staff for Emergency Situations in Belgrade. Vucic warned that some tens of thousands of houses in Sabac, city on the Sava river are in the immediate danger, and added that besides Sava, rivers Tamnava and Kolubara are still rising. Busses wait to pick up volunteers from Belgrade and get them to the town of Sabac to defend it from the raising Sava River. Since the first flood warnings on Wednesday, 7,250 people were evacuated from 1388 homes across Serbia by several thousand rescuers, police said. Emergency state was declared in Thursday at a national level. At the moment 1,758 members of the Serbian military with 397 vehicles, 91 pumps and 56 boats are in action in endangered zones, along with 720 rescuers and several thousand policemen. Russia sent an airplane with 71 equipped rescuers to help save lives of people endangered by the floods. The European Commission announced Friday that the EU sent aid to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina The Serbian government has opened diner and foreign currency accounts at which those who want to help victims of floods can deposit money.