Thousands of homes lost power due to the blizzard in the Balkans. weather news
The harsh weather wreaks havoc across the region, with snow drifts closing highways and bringing trains to a halt.
Thousands of homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina were without power due to heavy snowfall and winds, which also disrupted traffic in neighboring Croatia and Serbia.
“Despite efforts and continuous work to rectify the faults, the power supply situation has deteriorated. Currently, 127,000 metering points are without electricity,” distributor Elektroprivreda BiH said on Tuesday.
Elektrokrajina, which covers municipalities in the Serb entity in Bosnia, Republika Srpska, also announced that about 50,000 of its users were without electricity.
“All available field teams have been deployed and have been working since morning to fix the problem,” the company said.
In western Bosnia, a state of emergency was declared as bad weather blocked all entry and exit points to the municipality of Drvar, cutting off its 17,000 residents.
“The situation is extremely difficult. The snow keeps falling. People are trapped in the snow,” Drvar city council president Jasna Pečanac told local media.
Across the Balkans, authorities issued travel warnings as snowfall closed some major routes. Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia banned the movement of heavy vehicles and imposed limited traffic levels on affected roads.
Some villages around Drvar were covered with snow up to two meters (6.5 ft) high, and the heavy blizzard made clearing efforts more difficult. “We are requesting assistance with snow removal. All available machinery is already in the area,” Peknak said.
Due to heavy snowfall, classes have been canceled in primary schools in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s second-largest city and the administrative center of Republika Srpska.
A day earlier, classes were also suspended in about 70 elementary and high schools in the Una-Sana canton in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Railway traffic also came to a complete halt in some parts of Bosnia. The country’s state-run power company has described the situation in some areas of the country as “extremely difficult”. Heavy and wet snowfall caused distribution lines to collapse, making them difficult to access, it said in a statement.
Dozens of vehicles in western Bosnia remained stuck in the snow for 10 hours overnight before being freed to move, regional N1 television reported.
In Slovenia, the search for an injured Hungarian hiker missing since Sunday in the Alps north of the capital Julian was suspended because of high winds. Rescue workers reached his female companion on Monday and took her to a safe place.
In central Croatia, a mountain rescue team used skis early Tuesday to reach a man who was trapped in his car on his way to a hospital for dialysis. “We got him there in time,” said rescuer Dario Cindric.
