Almost two dozen people were killed and dozens more were injured when torrential rains triggered flash floods in the capital of Macedonia, the Red Cross said Sunday.
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The worst hit areas were villages outside of the capital including Aracinovo, Singelic, Smilkovci and Stajkovci.
At least 17 are dead and six are missing after torrential rains and flooding affected Macedonia’s capital of Skopje.
Municipal authorities urged people to avoid going out in the streets, and especially to heep out of their vehicles, with several roads in the capital still flooded and traffic interrupted on the city’s ring road.
Special police forces and trucks loaded with drinking water were heading for the most affected areas, and there some electricity outages, the Reuters reporter said.
In excess of 90 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours – more than the entirely monthly average for the Western Balkan country. The Macedonian capital of Skopje has been hit Saturday night by torrential rain and floods.
The mayor said Skopje had never experienced such a disaster. “Our teams are still searching for other possible victims”, police spokeswoman Liza Bendevska told the AFP news agency.
After a meeting of the National Crisis Management Center, Health Minister Nikola Todorov said the death toll could soon rise.
Further north in Croatia, stormy winds have disrupted roads at the height of the tourist season.
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Rain began falling at 5:30pm on Saturday (local time) and stopped only around 9:30am on Sunday, with the peak of the storm in the middle of the night, around 3:30am.
