Cleaning-up after the floods

Just a week ago this was a ghost town. Homes abandoned, classrooms empty, streets deserted. 

 

In the immediate aftermath of the floods, 24,000 people were evacuated from Obrenovac, over two-thirds of its entire population. 

 

A similar proportion of the town lay submerged - in some neighbourhoods waves lapped against second story windows.

A resident of Obrenovac has to use a ladder from a boat to access his flooded home

But now, six weeks since the floods hit, the waters have mostly receded and the town is showing signs of returning to normal.

Cafes and grocery stores have begun to reopen. While the queue of cars to enter the town is no longer empty, snaking for kilometres as more and more families return to survey the damage.

Hundreds of ruined cars line the town’s streets; doors, windows and bonnets open in the hope that when dry they will work again.

Shop-owners strip their storefronts and once valuable merchandise sits in sodden-heaps on the pavement waiting to be collected and disposed of.

For most people the cost has proved devastating. The worse affected simply have no safe home to return to, while the more fortunate wrestle with having lost their worldly possessions or businesses.

Many homes are still without electricity and basement floors remain flooded with sewage-contaminated and stagnant water – the risk of disease an all too real reality.

Clean-up efforts

In response, last week we distributed 250 clean-up kits so that those returning home have the right equipment and protective clothing to do so safely. Another 250 have gone to community volunteers who are working tirelessly to clean public areas such as streets, schools and kindergartens.

 

Save the Children Clean-up kits, consisting of protective boots, gloves, facemasks and shovels, have helped almost 5,000 people clean their homes

We have also given generators, water pumps and dehumidifiers to the local government so that those families in need can borrow them and make their homes habitable again.

Children in distress

The affects of the floods have also been extremely distressing for the children in affected areas.  Children have told us of how they watched helplessly as their homes filled with water, how they had to run in the dead of night to higher ground or wait for hours on second-floor balconies for rescue.

 

“It was late, we were all sleeping when I woke up and realised there was water in the house. I woke everyone up and we tried to stop it coming in. But it didn’t work so we ran. We couldn’t take anything. Just the clothes we were wearing to sleep in. It was frightening.” - Miladinka, 11 years old

Likewise many parents explain that since the disaster their children have become more introverted and that now often their children become physically upset whenever it starts to rain.

 

With schools and kindergartens now closed for rehabilitation, and with parents needing time and space to repair their homes and get their livelihoods back on track it is crucial that the needs of children are not forgotten.

This is why Save the Children, along with its partner organisations in Serbia, are about to initiate Child Friendly Spaces in both Obrenovac and rural areas to ensure that children affected by this crisis have a safe and nurturing space to play, learn, receive psychosocial support and most importantly be children again.

 

 

Landslides jeopardizing homes in rural Serbia

Our teams travelled to some of the more remote areas affected by devastating flooding in Serbia last week to find out what the current situation is for these communities and how Save the Children might be able to help the recovery process in the coming months.

In Loznica the Deputy Mayor told how they are now registering new and often serious landslides on a daily basis.  To date there have already been over 300 landslides in this municipality alone and between 20 and 30 homes have been completely destroyed.

 

A landslide outside Bajina Basta covers half the main road

A similar story is playing out in Bajina Basta where, in a briefing with our team, the Mayor highlighted how the landslides are not just destroying people’s homes (19 so far) but also infrastructure vital to rural communities everyday lives like country roads and bridges.

Many families who work the land in these regions have found themselves completely cut-off from main towns as roads have been ripped apart by shifting ground or buried by the debris from the landslides. One local talking to our team described it as if the roads had been literally picked up and wrung like a towel.

What was evident was that over 3 weeks since the flooding began many rural communities are still unable to access basic services located in main towns, or even their own fields and outhouses, often just hundreds of metres away.

A huge operation is now needed to ensure that communities hitherto cut-off are provided with the assistance they need so that they can try and get their lives back on track.

But this is a huge job. In Loznica alone the authorities estimate that the damage to both infrastructure and agriculture in the municipality will total over €6 million; to put this into perspective this is the municipality’s entire annual budget for 2014.

 


A home lies abandoned after a landslide swept away its foundations

However, it is not just the physical damage of the landslides that is having a major impact on those affected. Many have now seen everything they owned destroyed.  As one mother stated to our team: “We’ve lived here for over 15 years. This was our home. The thought of not being able to come back is like one of the family dying.”

When crisis meets every day-life

The last couple of weeks we have met people in shock and despair throughout the affected areas in Serbia and Bosnia. We have been in shock and despair ourselves.

But, at the same time, we have met a collective mentality in people that has given so much back to us. People have teamed up and cleaned neighborhoods, helped each other out, and volunteered in collective centers. In state of emergency, we have proved ourselves to be a strong group.

Now, water is withdrawing and daily life is slowly returning. For the weeks and months to come we will find ourselves somewhere in between crisis and the life we are used to. This might not be as life threatening as fighting the force of nature, but it will definitely be challenging. So many people meet this state without a home to return to.

Children in the collective centre in Zenica engaged in activities organized by Save the Children
PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad

We have to find out how we most efficiently can help those who lost everything. We need to make sure that the damages on land, businesses and infrastructure are repaired as soon as possible so we are able to get on. And we have to take good care of our children, so they can get on.

Natural disasters cause big traumas for lots of reasons, but maybe mostly because we are reminded of how small we are compared to nature. This can be very traumatizing to a child. How do you cope when you realize that your parents aren’t the leaders of the universe? 

The hug - children engaged in activities organized by Save the Children
PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad

Save the Children are now setting up Child Friendly Spaces in affected areas of Bosnia and Serbia. Here we will reach out to children with activities and a space to play and learn. Here they will get a break from the unusual surroundings they now have to deal with. We will also provide psychological support to release the tension and trauma our kids now face. We have already started with activities in the collective center in Zenica, and we are happy to see that even in state of emergency; children are still children. They light up in playful activities with each other and forget the world around them.