Russian cargo planes and rescue teams from around Europe have joined a huge aid effort in large areas of Serbia and Bosnia where at least 24 people have died in the worst floods in over a century.
Rains eased and waters receded in the worst-hit areas of central and western Serbia and north-east Bosnia yesterday, but the River Sava was forecast to continue rising in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The Sava burst its banks after days of torrential rain in the former Yugoslav republics, flooding towns and cutting power to tens of thousands of homes.
Thousands of soldiers and volunteers worked through the night to build a sandbag barrier three miles long to protect Serbia's Kostolac coal-fired power plant, which currently provides 20% of Serbia's electricity.
But waters from the River Mlava broke through early yesterday, threatening the Drmno coal-mine deposits near the Kostolac plant.
"The army, police, volunteers and Kostolac employees are using all mechanisation and are piling up sandbags to slow the river flow and prevent it from entering the power generation system," a spokeswoman for Serbia's EPS power distributor said.
Flooding had already cut Serbian power generation by 40%, forcing the cash-strapped Balkan country to boost imports. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said a fire and flooding of surface mines at the 1300 megawatt Kolubara coal-fired power plant southwest of Belgrade had caused damage of at least €100 million (£81m).
Authorities say the economic impact of the floods will be huge, devastating the agricultural sector vital to both the Serbian and Bosnian economies.
"The danger today is less than it was yesterday, but we have to control the Sava as much as we can," Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said.
"These are the kind of waters not seen in 1000 years, let alone 100."
He said two bodies had been recovered from the worst-hit Serbian town of Obrenovac, some 20 miles southwest of Belgrade.
Predrag Maric, the Interior Ministry's head of emergency situations, said the death-toll in Serbia so far was five, with one person missing. More fatalities were expected.
In Obrenovac, members of a rafting club from the southern Serbian town of Raska joined rescue efforts.
They were bringing out elderly men and women on their backs after they had spent days spent without electricity in flooded homes.
In Bosnia, 19 people were confirmed dead by Saturday, with nine bodies recovered from the north-eastern town of Doboj after what the regional police chief described as a "tsunami" of water 10ft to 13ft high.
Reports from the scene said half the town was still submerged. Bosnian soldiers distributed food and medical supplies by truck, boat and bulldozer. Cranes lifted medical workers into the top floors of some homes and removed stranded residents from others.
On Sunday, two Russian Ilyushin-26 cargo planes landed in Serbia carrying food, generators and rescue boats.
Rescue teams, humanitarian aid, water pumps and generators have arrived from Russia and several European Union member states, including the UK, Germany and Austria. Support has also come from Serbia and Bosnia's fellow ex-Yugoslav republics.
Some 20,000 people have been had to leave their homes in Serbia, and at least 13,000 have in Bosnia. Donations of clothes and food poured into collection centres set up in Belgrade.
"I carried my kids out on my back, then waited 12 hours to be rescued myself," said 40-year-old Obrenovac resident Dragan Todorovic, who spent the night in a Belgrade sports hall with dozens of other families.
"The house was new, built two years ago for €100,000. What now?"
In Bosnia-Hercegovina, landslides have buried houses and disturbed landmines laid during the war in the 1990s. Seen from the air, the north-east third of Bosnia resembles a huge muddy lake, with houses, roads and rail lines submerged. About a million people live in the worst-affected areas.
The floods are also affecting Croatia, where thousands have fled their homes after three months' worth of rain fell in a three days.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article