Serbia Bracing For Record Danube Flooding

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Serbia is bracing itself for the highest river levels in 25 years as flood waters from central Europe make their way south. The situation is at its worst in the northern province of Vojvodina, near Hungary, where flooding has driven hundreds of people from their homes.

For days soldiers and civilians have been battling a natural enemy. In northern Serbia they have been building barricades of sand bags to keep the ever rising waters at bay. The rivers have been swelling to a peak which has yet to come.

The Danube, the Sava, the Tisa, the Tamis and their tributaries have all flooded. It is the same water that last week ravaged parts of Hungary, Germany, Austria and the Czech republic.

The areas around Serbia's second largest city Novi Sad are particularly vulnerable, but low lying parts of the capital, Belgrade, have also been hit.

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http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=29767

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1. Danube Floods, Reaching Record-High Levels

April 13,2006 | BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- The Danube reached record-high levels in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria on Thursday, flooding fertile farmland as authorities in southeastern Europe considered ordering evacuations.

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Rivers were expected to rise higher in the coming days, and hundreds had already fled the western Romanian village of Gataia, which flooded after the Barzava River burst its banks, officials said.

In Bulgaria, authorities declared a crisis in all 22 communities along the country's 280-mile stretch of the Danube, which reached a record high level of 30.8 feet in the northwestern city of Vidin, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency and to prepare the city of 50,000 for a possible evacuation.

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"If the Iron Gates do not restrict the water flow, not a single Bulgarian port will be able to resist" massive flooding, warned the government agency for research and maintenance of the Danube.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8GV9NB82.html