The Balkan Floods

Hi everyone, I'm writing a topic here to raise awareness and inform you about what's going on here right now. Right now, East Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia are experiencing one of the biggest natural disasters ever in this area, and wider since recorded measurements.

I am not sure how foreign media reports this so I will try to explain it from my personal experience and taking media extracts if I can find any. Note that I do live in East Croatia and very close to the current water border and I have many friends and relatives that have fled their villages that have been flooded.

Last week, in a sucession of a few short days 3 months worth of rain fell. The rivers crossed their banks and broke the defences and ridges, resulting in an unseen flood...Entire villages disappeared under the flood, roofs under, and others are facing 3.5m+ of water!! Problems are also caused by the flood moving thousands of minefields left over from the war.

Al Jazeera said:

Officials in Bosnia said they fear the damage caused by heavy rains and landslides would exceed that caused by the entire Balkan conflict fought between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats between 1992 and 1995.
The heavy rainfall, which began last week, was the highest ever recorded in the Balkans. Excess water led to rivers breaking their banks and landslides that left 49 people dead and half a million people displaced.
Some 100,000 homes and 230 schools were destroyed by the torrents and hundreds of landslides.

Click to expand...

People are mass fleeing to Germany right now(to relatives) and are being homed in schools and churches in near towns. Thousands arrive every day to the camps, and the Balkans simply can't support this.




Please if you can't donate or help, raise awareness. Spread it.
If you want to help, please donate to the following Croatian Red Cross donation site, it's SSL secured and you can see it's https, if you can, use online translation, if it's not possible say it here and I will translate it all myself.
You can donate to Croatia, Serbia or Bosnia...it really doesn't matter which one it is.

https://secure.webteh.hr/donate/79


I hope you understand, I will also keep this thread updated.

England floods every year now.
Let's make a thread for it.

The newspapers said we'd sent help, not sure what kind of help.

Leifr Eiríksson said:

England floods every year now.
Let's make a thread for it.

Click to expand...

Go ahead.

Because
is as bad as

and
is worse than


Oh and

Officials in Bosnia said they fear the damage caused by heavy rains and landslides would exceed that caused by the entire Balkan conflict fought between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats between 1992 and 1995.

Ahem, not meaning to sound insensitive but me and my girlfriend had made plans for a vacation in Belgrade in early July. Should we cancel it?

What kind of a person goes to a vacation to the Balkans...

Belgrade is fine I guess, only some parts of it got flooded. Really not sure what to say, maybe someone from Belgrade itself will answer you.

Sherlock Holmes said:

What kind of a person goes to a vacation to the Balkans...

Belgrade is fine I guess, only some parts of it got flooded. Really not sure what to say, maybe someone from Belgrade itself will answer you.

Click to expand...

Aren't there some nice beaches? Or, well, weren't. Because I guess those would flood first.

Leifr Eiríksson said:

England floods every year now.
Let's make a thread for it.

Click to expand...

Can you please remove this post? It's disrespectful towards the people who have died during the floods.

Allegro said:

Ahem, not meaning to sound insensitive but me and my girlfriend had made plans for a vacation in Belgrade in early July. Should we cancel it?

Click to expand...

Well if you're only going to stay in Belgrade then no need, there weren't any life threatening floods in the Belgrade area and the city was used as an evacuation zone.

If you want us to remove every disrespectful post from the OT you'll have to get rid of OT altogether. I see no problem with what Leifr said. Even if he'd be a douche in some people's eyes, he's well within his rights to express himself.

Sherlock Holmes said:

What kind of a person goes to a vacation to the Balkans...

Belgrade is fine I guess, only some parts of it got flooded. Really not sure what to say, maybe someone from Belgrade itself will answer you.

Click to expand...

Croatia has some really beautiful spots. And also some really cool spots to go diving, only slightly spoiled by open sewage pipes that give you the holy mother of all cases of the runs you ever had.
First time I ever had the pleasure to puke and **** myself at the same time while helplessly shivering on the ground with a horrid fever. Beautiful vacation though, apart from that.

My uncle swears on going to Serbia every other year, but he has family there, so there's that.

You shouldn't ever swim in a place like that. You can get a lot worse than what you got .

We only saw the sewage pipe after we were well underwater already of course.

Sherlock Holmes said:

Leifr Eiríksson said:

England floods every year now.
Let's make a thread for it.

Click to expand...

Go ahead.

Click to expand...

Ignore that. The British have a messed up notion of what constitutes natural disasters. 25 degrees for three days is a "heat wave" and 5 cm of snow gets Heathrow closed.

Untitled. said:

If you want us to remove every disrespectful post from the OT you'll have to get rid of OT altogether. I see no problem with what Leifr said. Even if he'd be a douche in some people's eyes, he's well within his rights to express himself.

Click to expand...

He is within his rights to express himself yes, but that doesn't make it suitable for the topic. Let's imagine you lost someone you care for and some random guy who doesn't know rats **** about the topic at hand comes and expresses his opinion which disregards the current situation like it's nothing because it happens to another country more often. Yes he is within his rights, that's why I asked him nicely to remove it instead of demanding it. I would personally remove it because posting statements like that would make me look like a complete idiot.

Do some research before you post people. Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, aren't used to these kind of floods and we aren't ready for these types of situations - our government is disorganized and not prepared for these types of natural disasters. On top of that, people are uneducated on how powerful and deadly these floods can be, and stay home instead of evacuating immediately. Because one type of crisis happens to a country more often, and they're more prepared and experienced with dealing with it, doesn't mean another country will be of equal experience and that the same disaster won't bring a greater death toll to them.

Untitled. said:

If you want us to remove every disrespectful post from the OT you'll have to get rid of OT altogether. I see no problem with what Leifr said. Even if he'd be a douche in some people's eyes, he's well within his rights to express himself.

Click to expand...

I don't know if I was expressing myself or more poking fun at the thread. It can be confusing for even myself at times.
Good job picking out pictures though that aren't indicative of the real breadth and width of flooding in the United Kingdom. But let's look on the sunny side; at least something's flushing away all of those mines huh?

momcilo94 said:

He is within his rights to express himself yes, but that doesn't make it suitable for the topic. Let's imagine you lost someone you care for and some random guy who doesn't know rats **** about the topic at hand comes and expresses his opinion which disregards the current situation like it's nothing because it happens to another country more often. Yes he is within his rights, that's why I asked him nicely to remove it instead of demanding it. I would personally remove it because posting statements like that would make me look like a complete idiot.

Click to expand...

That's right; some random guy. If I knew it was this easy to rustle yer' pants I would have made some black-laced comment about your connectivity problems to the previous Víkingr event. Yes, we did change the password mid-event just to keep you out. We're all vastly racist up there and have a burning urge to keep out all of these scruffy eastern European Serb types.

momcilo94 said:

He is within his rights to express himself yes, but that doesn't make it suitable for the topic. Let's imagine you lost someone you care for and some random guy who doesn't know rats **** about the topic at hand comes and expresses his opinion which disregards the current situation like it's nothing because it happens to another country more often.

Click to expand...

Oh, I understand this perfectly. In fact, I know a girl whose mother died in cancer some 10 years ago. If she hears you mention the word "cancer" she will slap you. It doesn't make you morally obligated to not talk about cancer.
Frankly, it sounds like those people who want to make it illegal to say things that could offend other people.

This isn't quite the same situation, but I feel the point still stands. There's nothing wrong with the post, especially if it was intended as a joke. It might have been in bad taste (like every Jew/black person joke, ever), but then, we're on the internet. If anything else was expected, expectations were a bit too high I think.


That being said, it's a tragedy that people die. And while attempting to ease the pain of other people is an admirable and virtuous action, it's not really likely that donating X amount of money for some African kid you've never seen and most likely will never hear of is going to somehow change your life. In fact, as far as the donater is concerned, the money could just as well be thrown in a sewer, except he wouldn't feel as good about it.
I might donate though. I like feeling good through helping "inferior" people in "inferior" countries.

Leifr Eiríksson said:

That's right; some random guy. If I knew it was this easy to rustle yer' pants I would have made some black-laced comment about your connectivity problems to the previous Víkingr event. Yes, we did change the password mid-event just to keep you out. We're all vastly racist up there and have a burning urge to keep out all of these scruffy eastern European Serb types.

Click to expand...

What the actual hell are you talking about?

Untitled. said:

momcilo94 said:

He is within his rights to express himself yes, but that doesn't make it suitable for the topic. Let's imagine you lost someone you care for and some random guy who doesn't know rats **** about the topic at hand comes and expresses his opinion which disregards the current situation like it's nothing because it happens to another country more often.

Click to expand...

Oh, I understand this perfectly. In fact, I know a girl whose mother died in cancer some 10 years ago. If she hears you mention the word "cancer" she will slap you. It doesn't make you morally obligated to not talk about cancer.
Frankly, it sounds like those people who want to make it illegal to say things that could offend other people.

This isn't quite the same situation, but I feel the point still stands. There's nothing wrong with the post, especially if it was intended as a joke. It might have been in bad taste (like every Jew/black person joke, ever), but then, we're on the internet. If anything else was expected, expectations were a bit too high I think.


That being said, it's a tragedy that people die. And while attempting to ease the pain of other people is an admirable and virtuous action, it's not really likely that donating X amount of money for some African kid you've never seen and most likely will never hear of is going to somehow change your life. In fact, as far as the donater is concerned, the money could just as well be thrown in a sewer, except he wouldn't feel as good about it.
I might donate though. I like feeling good through helping "inferior" people in "inferior" countries.

Click to expand...

It's not the same, talking about cancer and for example saying that it doesn't matter that her mother died of cancer because people die of cancer all the time, which is what Leifr did in this topic. And there is a difference between joking around to cheer people up like you did with the Homer Simpson gif, and posting something that is saying the thread maker is just hassling everyone by posting irrelevant stuff.

As for donations you gotta ask yourself if you're donating just to make yourself feel better, or because you believe the money you send will actually make an impact, even though you don't witness it.

momcilo94 said:

May I get an answer on whether the password was changed halfway through the event or not?

Click to expand...

momcilo94 said:

...posting something that is saying the thread maker is just hassling everyone by posting irrelevant stuff.

Click to expand...

Alas, if it were only so.
Unfortunately I only commented that we should also make a thread for the flooding in England. I suppose it would be better to take that to the weather thread though, a good grumble about rain is one of our favourite topics as Englishmen - it's probably why I am so incredibly invested in this thread.

How high's the water momma?
She said it's five feet high and rising.