Danube Floods the Balkans

On the blogs:

Belgrade mostly high and dry

Water, water, everywhere...

I'm still alive! And not wet... yet.

Jasmina Tesanovic, Belgrade: New Normality

MSM:

Balkans battle rising floodwaters

Danube floods the Balkans

State of emergency in Serbia after floods danger as Danube levels rise

Serbia Gets A Breather As Danube Flood Crest Hits Romania, Bulgaria

New Information On The Damages Produced Lately By Danube River

Serbians Battle Record Floods

Danube banks threaten to burst

The village where my father is from, and where we spent many a summer, is on the banks of the Danube, across the river from Romania, between the towns of Golubac and Veliko Gradiste (both of which are mentioned in the articles as being heavily flooded), downriver from Belgrade and Smederevo (also both mentioned as heavily flooded). It has a puny little dam alongside the village, but nothing to protect a huge swath of land covered with thousands of weekend houses and cottages right next to the village. I am pretty sure most of it is flooded. I talked to my mother earlier today, but she has no news from our friends there.

The prognosis is bleak - that it will not subside for another two weeks or so. Sava, the largest tributary of Danube there, stopped yesterday as Danube was unable to receive its waters. Sava's waters may, then, back up and flood big chunks of Croatia. I remember a flooding of low-lying areas of Belgrade around 1989 or so, and what a havock this did to the traffic in Belgrade, with all the fairgrounds, Ada Ciganlija and Banovo Brdo traffic being rerouted around the racecourse and across the train-tracks. Apparently, it is ten times worse this time around.

The cause of this is, apparently, the unprecedented amount of snow that fell in Central/Western Europe this winter, all of it melting right now. I have not seen any mention of a possible link to global warming, but I am sure someone is going to ask that question soon (OK, I just did, didn't I?).