Flood disaster with 22 fatalities Huge carpet of garbage drifts through the Bosnian Neretva valley

After torrential rain and landslides in Bosnia, the floods swept away entire houses. Rescue workers are still searching for victims. The environment in the wider region is threatened with severe consequences.

After landslides, heavy rain and flooding in the south of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a huge pile of garbage floats in the Neretva river valley. Nine days after the disaster, the dam at Grabovica is preventing the garbage from floating further downstream, according to Bosnian and Croatian media reports.

In the actual disaster area around the village of Donja Jablanica, 40 kilometers north of Mostar, the search and clean-up work continued, according to the civil defense in Mostar.

The day before, rescue workers had recovered two more bodies. The number of deaths in the wake of the storm disaster thus rose to 22.

The floodwaters swept away entire houses on October 4. Since then, building rubble, household appliances, car tires and garbage of all kinds have been floating down the Neretva.

A carpet of garbage in a natural paradise

The Grabovica dam is located around ten kilometers downstream from Donja Jablanica. Experts and environmentalists fear serious consequences for the region if it has to be opened under the pressure of the accumulated waste. The entire Neretva valley and its estuary on the Adriatic Sea in neighboring Croatia would then be at risk.

The Neretva valley, which winds through central and southern Bosnia in sometimes narrow gorges, is considered a natural paradise. The river flows through the Herzegovinian city of Mostar, where it is spanned by an Ottoman-era bridge at a height of almost 20 meters. The traces of the storm can also be seen in Mostar. The picturesque turquoise of the Neretva has given way to a murky brown.