Floods plague southeast Europe again! by Nina Ridge
Heavy rains have once again lashed the Southeast of Europe bringing yet more devastation to the area. This summer there has been two sides to the coin for Europe, with the west experiencing some extremely hot and dry weather, whilst the east has suffered from extremely wet and cool conditions.
Over 15 people have died and hundreds have fled their homes as torrential rains and storms hit the Balkan country. On Wednesday traffic was disrupted and power was cut to thousands of homes isolating, already remote villages. Four of the people that died were struck by lightning during the frenzy of storms.
Some 31 counties out of 42 in the country have been affected. The worst hit being the counties of Bacau, Vrancea and Galati in Moldavia, where the Siret River burst its banks to flood numerous towns.
Soldiers and firefighters have had to evacuate more than 12,000 people. Preliminary estimates of the damage indicate that over fourteen and a half thousand homes have been flooded, with a shocking three and a half thousand being completely destroyed. Thousands of acres of farmland and major roads have also been inundated hampering rescue efforts. Because of the state of the countries roads, army helicopters have been drafted in to deliver emergency supplies to the remote communities. Damage costs to the country currently run at an astonishingly high 680 million euros, which is equivalent to around £460 million.
The latest rainfall comes as an addition to the already devastatingly wet months of April, May and June where 30 people lost their lives in the worst floods to hit the Romania in 50 years.
The flooding has been gauged to be such a major event that the European Space Agency has stepped in to help rescue efforts. Romania has made use of the ‘International Charter on Space and Major Disasters’ launched after a conference which was held in Vienna, Austria in July 1999. This charter allows countries experiencing natural or manmade disasters to request for detailed and up to the minute satellite pictures to show how the land has been affected by the event and therefore be able to centralise rescue efforts in the worst hit areas. The charter was initiated in Romania at the beginning of April when the flooding started and is still in place, helping once again in the latest disaster.
The Romanian Weather Service has predicted that there is more rain on the way over the coming days, which comes as yet more bad news for the country.
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