2023-08-07 09:06:00
According to media reports, a man died while cleaning up flood damage, and another body was found in the Temenica River. Although the weather in Slovenia improved on Monday, there was a risk of numerous landslides in the affected areas. A body was found in a cesspool in Moste near Komenda on Sunday. As the news portal “Kamnik.info” reported, it is assumed that the man fell into an open shaft during clearance work. The second victim was recovered from the flooding river in the municipality of Mirna Peč in the south-east of the country.
Renovation work has started in the country, and Slovenia is also hoping for international help. Above all, the government has requested heavy machinery and prefabricated emergency bridges via the EU civil protection procedures. Among other things, 20 temporary bridges of up to 40 meters in length were requested, as the government announced. Five large transport helicopters, 200 soldiers and a further 20 emergency bridges were requested from NATO.
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Situation still unstable: ten people evacuated in St. Veit an der Glan
The river levels slowly decreased, the highest alarm level was only valid along the Mur in the east on Monday. The situation there has reportedly eased, but some villages have been endangered. The damaged dam near the village of Dolnja Bistrica in the municipality of Črenšovci was sealed on Sunday and the evacuated residents were able to return. The tidal wave now threatened the villages of Hotiza and Kot.
In the hardest-hit areas, the focus of the clean-up work was on restoring road connections and checking the bridges that might withstand the torrents of water. Many of these were either severely damaged or washed away entirely. In many places there is also no water supply because the pipes were destroyed, and in some places there were still problems with electricity and telecommunications.
Van der Bellen: “Being there for each other makes our community strong”
Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen exchanged views on the phone with his Slovenian counterpart Nataša Pirc Musar regarding the situation following the flood disaster in both countries. “I expressed Austria’s sincere condolences in the face of this natural disaster,” said Van der Bellen on Sunday evening on the social network Twitter, which was recently renamed “X”. According to Van der Bellen, “heaviest destruction is to be lamented”. “In Slovenia as well as in Austria, in addition to incredible images of destruction, you also see images of solidarity. Being there for one another makes our community strong – a strength that we so urgently need in this difficult situation,” said the Federal President in a personally signed tweet.
For her part, Pirc Musar also thanked him via Twitter “for all the help you have offered, Mr. President”. The Slovenian President visited her native town of Kamnik north of Ljubljana on Sunday and was then “shocked” by the extent of the destruction there.
Floods caused by heavy rain have submerged two thirds of Slovenia in the past few days. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated, and several places were cut off from the outside world for days. The province of Carinthia, which was badly hit by the floods itself, was very involved in helping the neighboring country and its emergency services, who took on the supply of some isolated places. The extent of the damage in Slovenia is estimated at half a billion euros, which corresponds to almost one percent of the annual economic output of the country of two million people.
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