The assessment and repair of the damage from the floods that hit the Canton Sarajevo (CS) at the beginning of this month are still ongoing, while the citizens who experienced that torrent of water destroyed everything are waiting for concrete help.
”The Cantonal Government is ready to react urgently, ” explained Minister Enver Hadziahmetovic. According to preliminary estimates, 341 buildings in this canton were flooded.
Elmir Karasoftic from the local community Dobrosevici is still adding up the damage from the floods. Everything is destroyed. With a family of five, he is now a tenant upstairs with his brother. He tries to save some things, and he dries them with his family for days. His house was flooded in 2014 as well, but not to this extent. There is no concrete help yet, said Elmir, remembering the catastrophic water torrent about 15 days ago.
“The water was flowing in at such a speed that it was indescribable. In about an hour the water had already started to enter the house. It probably reached two and a half meters where we are standing now. All four vehicles were totally flooded. Garage, central heating stove, everything was underwater. We’ve been building something for twenty years, then when you get up in the morning you have nothing,” mentioned Karasoftic.
Municipal commissions have 60 days to complete the damage assessment and submit them to the competent service in CS. The cantonal government is ready to react urgently, as the line minister stated.
“I believe that the Government will make that decision at an extraordinary session on Monday or Tuesday, but here is the amount and in what way, you will probably have that information in the first half of next week,” said Enver Hadziahmetovic, Minister of Communal Economy,Infrastructure, and Environmental Protection of CS.
“Municipal services are obliged to calculate these damages as soon as possible, to see how much regular funds from the budget and assigned funds can cover these damages. For the rest that they can not cover, they will send us requests, to our cantonal commission. I think it should go a little faster, ” noted the assistant director of Cantonal Civil Protection Administration (KUCZ), Mirsad Medic.
Preliminary results show that 341 buildings were flooded in several settlements in CS. The cause is the human factor. Wild landfills, construction of embankments without adequate preparation and channeling of the river flow.
“It has not been recorded so far that there were such devastating floods, more precisely, that the river Zeljeznica had such a high water level since the measurement was started,” reminded the director of KUCZ CS, Dzenan Brkanic.
Elmir Karasoftic, as well as his neighbors, are asking only one thing from the authorities:
“To save our trough so we don’t live in fear anymore. I can’t take this tragedy anymore. I would leave, but I can’t just go because of my parents who are seriously ill.”
