Bosnia and Serbia Floods of May 2014: 16 Photos and What Happened

In mid-May 2014 a slow-moving low-pressure system parked itself over the western Balkans and dropped more rain in a few days than parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia normally see in months. Rivers including the Sava, Bosna, Drina and Kolubara broke their banks, hillsides gave way in hundreds of landslides, and whole towns went under. At least 86 people died across the region, 57 of them in Serbia and 24 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and more than 1.6 million people in the two countries were affected.

The photographs below were taken by Reuters and AFP photographers in the worst days of the disaster, mostly around 19 May 2014. Each one comes with a short note on what it shows and why that moment mattered. Further down you will find the background: the storm itself, the threat to Serbia's biggest power plant, the old landmines moved by the water, and what the floods cost.

What happened in May 2014

Meteorologists in Serbia and Bosnia named the storm Tamara; it is also listed under the name Yvette. It hit the region between 13 and 18 May, and flooding continued until about 27 May. On 15 May alone, Belgrade, Valjevo and Loznica each recorded more than 100 mm of rain in a single day, and Belgrade's total for the month beat a record dating back to 1897. The town of Maglaj in central Bosnia received roughly two months of rainfall in less than two days.

Because the ground was already saturated, the water had nowhere to go. In Serbia, the Kolubara rose so fast overnight on 15–16 May that about 90% of Obrenovac, a town just southwest of Belgrade, was flooded and the whole town had to be evacuated. In Bosnia, the Bosna river swept through Doboj, where ten people died, and swamped Maglaj and Šamac, the town at the meeting of the Bosna and the Sava. Eastern Croatia, Romania and Slovakia also recorded deaths.

Bosnian officials compared the damage to the 1992–95 war. Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdžija told reporters that the physical destruction was no smaller than what the war had caused, and that over 100,000 houses and other buildings were no longer usable while more than a million people had lost access to clean water, according to Reuters.

Rescues in Vojskova and Bosanski Šamac

The first set of photos was taken by Reuters photographer Srdjan Živulović on 19 May in northern Bosnia, in the village of Vojskova and the town of Bosanski Šamac, both close to the Sava.

A rescuer leans over the side of a boat to pull a small dog off floating debris in Vojskova. Animals were often left behind when families were taken off roofs in a hurry, and many volunteers went back for them. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

With the ground floor of his blue house under water, a man waits at an upstairs window for a boat. In flat villages along the Sava, the upper storey was often the only dry place left, and people sat there for hours or days. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

Only the roof of this house is still above water, and a man stands on its ridge waiting for help. Pictures like this one were taken from rescue boats working through the village street by street. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

A pig rests in flood water at the doorstep of a house, between pots of geraniums. Rural families in the region keep pigs, cattle and poultry, and the loss of livestock hit household incomes hard long after the water went down. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

Residents travel by boat along a main street in Bosanski Šamac, past a speed sign that is now half under water. The town sits at the confluence of the Bosna and the Sava, and its embankments were under severe pressure for days. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

Rescuers paddle a yellow boat towards a man waiting in the doorway of his flooded home in Vojskova. Up to 35,000 people in Bosnia were evacuated by helicopter, boat and truck, and Bosnian officials said hundreds of thousands more left on their own. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

Where the water had already drained in Bosanski Šamac, roads were left split and undermined. A man gathers building materials beside a broken stretch of asphalt, the first step of a clean-up that would take months. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

A woman empties a bowl of water from a balcony hung with clothes and socks put out to dry. In flooded towns, dry clothing, drinking water and electricity were all in short supply at the same time. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

A power plant, a coal mine and old landmines

Two threats made the floods more than a local disaster. The first was energy. The Nikola Tesla power station near Obrenovac produces close to half of Serbia's electricity. As a new flood wave moved down the Sava, soldiers, energy workers and volunteers spent nights filling and stacking sandbags around the plant and around the coal-fired Kostolac plant east of Belgrade. Parts of Nikola Tesla were switched off as a precaution, but the plant itself was saved. The nearby Kolubara open-pit coal mine, which feeds it, was not so lucky: it filled with water, and pumping it dry took months.

The second threat was buried in the ground. Bosnia still has minefields left from the 1992–95 war, and authorities warned that landslides and floodwater could carry mines and their warning signs into areas that had been considered safe. Returning residents were asked to stay away from unfamiliar debris and to report anything suspicious rather than touch it.

For many families, the floods also reopened old wounds. Reuters spoke to Hatidža Muhić in Donja Polja near Maglaj, a Bosniak village rebuilt after the war, as she swept mud from a hallway where the water had reached about three metres. She said she had believed the war was as bad as things could get, and was now finding out otherwise.

After the water: landslides, shelters and evacuations

The second set of photos, from Reuters and AFP photographers, shows the wider picture across Bosnia and Serbia.

Residents wait on the first-floor balcony of an apartment block while a red car sits almost fully submerged in the yard below. In many towns the water rose overnight, giving people little time to move vehicles or belongings. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

An Orthodox cross rises out of a flooded field that stretches to the horizon. The flat farmland along the Sava turned into a lake, and many graveyards and village churches stood in water for days. Photo: Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic

A man walks past a house that slid off its foundations and tipped over. The storm set off hundreds of landslides in hilly areas, and in some villages the moving ground did more damage than the water itself. Photo: Reuters/Marko Djurica

Evacuees sleep on rows of mattresses laid out across a sports hall floor. Schools, gyms and halls in Belgrade and other cities were turned into emergency shelters, where volunteers brought food, blankets and clothes. Photo: Reuters/Marko Djurica

An aerial view shows brown water filling the streets of a town as far as the eye can see. From the air, the scale of the floods was clearest: entire districts, roads and fields under one sheet of water. Photo: AFP/Elvis Barukcic

A young man carries an elderly woman through flooded streets while rescue workers follow behind. Older residents who could not walk through deep water depended on neighbours, soldiers and firefighters to get out. Photo: AFP/Sasa Djordjevic

Cars sit in water up to their windows on a flooded street. For many families, losing a car and everything on the ground floor meant starting over with very little. Photo: AFP

An amphibious military vehicle carries evacuated residents out of a flooded neighbourhood. Army units in both countries used tracked vehicles, boats and helicopters to reach places that ordinary trucks could not. Photo: AFP

The cost and the international response

In the first days, the death toll stood at around 40. It rose as waters receded and bodies were found, finally reaching at least 86 across five countries. Evacuations were on a huge scale: Obrenovac alone moved more than 30,000 people, and around 15,000 were evacuated in eastern Croatia.

Assessments carried out by the European Union, the World Bank Group and the United Nations put damage in Serbia at about €1.55 billion, close to the Serbian government's own figure of €1.53 billion. Combined estimates for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina reached as high as €3.5 billion. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić publicly appealed for foreign help, and many countries sent rescue teams, equipment and money, coordinated in part through the EU's Emergency Response Coordination Centre. Serbia, as an EU candidate, could also apply to the EU Solidarity Fund; Bosnia, not being eligible, relied more on bilateral aid and loans.

The most moving part of the story was local. In Belgrade, hundreds of volunteers filled sandbags along the Sava; police asked for more bags because demand outran supply. People across former Yugoslav borders, still marked by the wars of the 1990s, sent help to each other's towns.

Lessons from the 2014 Balkan floods

Floods of this size are not only a weather story. Several things made the damage worse, and they are worth remembering wherever heavy rain is becoming more common:

• Saturated ground amplifies everything. After a wet spring, extreme rain runs straight into rivers and loosens slopes, which is why landslides followed so quickly.
• Old embankments are a weak point. Embankments along the Sava and its tributaries were under strain for days, and a single breach could flood a whole town.
• Critical infrastructure needs a plan. The near miss at the Nikola Tesla plant showed how one flooded site could have cut power to half a country.
• Warnings save lives only if people can act. Elderly and isolated residents were the hardest to reach, which is why neighbour networks and volunteers mattered so much.

If you live in a flood-prone area, it is worth knowing your local evacuation routes, keeping documents and medicines in a grab bag, and following official warnings rather than waiting to see how high the water gets.

Sources: Photos by Srdjan Zivulovic and Marko Djurica (Reuters) and Elvis Barukcic and Sasa Djordjevic (AFP); original reporting by Reuters (Matt Robinson, Ivana Sekularac, Maja Zuvela, Igor Ilic, Zoran Radosavljevic) and RT; Wikipedia: 2014 Southeast Europe floods.

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