Communities Recovering From Flash Floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The muddy road to Donja Jablanica is imprinted with the tracks of heavy machinery. These are the only vehicles that can pass on this washed-out highway that leads to the Adriatic Sea.
Flash flooding in Donja Jablanica in Bosnia and Herzegovina killed 19 people and caused massive damage to homes. Photo by Merima Hrnjica/CRS
Donja Jablanica is now desolated and destroyed. On the night of October 4, the water swept away entire families and houses from this community of around 400 people in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ten days later, the only movement here is the digging buckets of excavators and a few local residents trying to clean up their destroyed homes.
Among them is Dženan Imamović. He says that four and a half feet of mud got into his house, and he can't get it out. But that's not the worst thing that happened to him on the night of the flash floods. He also lost nine members of his family.
Dženan Imamović lost nine members of his family after flash floods swept through his town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo by Merima Hrnjica/CRS
The first wave, he recalls, was huge. Thanks to the ladder he had in the house, he escaped through the window with his wife and daughter. Dženan was able to save his one neighbor’s life, but could not save his own brother, sister and their families. Over the course of the next seven days he discovered their bodies in the ruins.
"They had no chance," Dženan says and points to the empty field next to his house, where his brother's house once stood. "I found them down here—the whole house went down into that abyss." The only survivor of his brother’s family is his 8-year-old nephew Edi.
Nineteen residents of Jablanica lost their lives in the flash floods and landslides that hit this small community. Those who remained behind, in addition to losing their loved ones, lost everything they had spent their lives building. Four more nearby communities suffered in a similar way—Konjic, Kiseljak, Kreševo and Fojnica—with 27 fatalities found so far.
Aid to the flooded areas started arriving on the first day. Catholic Relief Services—through a U.S. Agency for International Development project called Increasing Resilience to Natural Disasters and Enhancing Preparedness Strategy, or PREPS—provided what was needed most at that moment: emergency kits that enable survival in the first 24 hours after a disaster, as well as equipment for civil protection representatives who work on the ground. In the following days, CRS delivered supplies and equipment for house clearing and cleaning.
Although the damage from this disaster is still being assessed, what is certain is that these communities will need support to construct new homes or renovate existing ones, to restore their economic sustainability and to overcome emotional trauma.
Dženan is aware that life must go on, and he sees the tragedy as God's will. Still, he knows that recovery will take time as he copes with the loss of so many of his family and neighbors.
"The shock and fear passed when we buried them because we know they had found their peace. However, it is still difficult to fall asleep at night," he says.
