Macedonia declared a state of emergency in its capital, Skopje, and neighbouring districts on Sunday, a day after at least 21 people were killed in flash floods caused by a storm.
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On Sunday afternoon, authorities said that 20 bodies had been identified up until that point. Several people are still missing.
Many witnesses have described that victims drowned after being trapped in their houses when torrents suddenly swept through the area.
Some of the victims died in their cars as they were rapidly engulfed in mud and water while others were unable to flee their homes in time to reach safety.
Torrential rains had swept away a section of the ring road around Skopje and some cars had been carried hundreds of metres into nearby fields, a Reuters reporter said.
A flooded vehicle is pictured in a ditch by a motorway, after an overnight storm near the village of Stajkovci, just east of Skopje, Macedonia, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016.
Skopje Mayor Koche Trayanovski said that the storm felt like “a water bomb” had been dropped on the city. “Televisions, the fridge, the sofa, everything was floating.it was a nightmare”, said Baze Spriovski, a 43-year-old from Singelic in the outskirts of Skopje.
“There were thunderbolts with lightning nearly every second”.
Police and army helicopters searched for the missing and evacuated hundreds from the flood zone after heavy rain, strong winds and thunderstorms hit the city and its northern suburbs late Saturday.
In the northwestern Tetovo region, the storm caused landslides and cut a road, Balkan Insight says.
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Health authorities have advised residents and tourists in the worst hit areas to use only bottled water or water from public authority cisterns for drinking and cooking.
