Flooding threatens as rivers ice over in Serbia

Feb 8, 2012, 9:54 GMT

Belgrade - Serbian waterway authorities have ordered emergency measures to break the ice forming on several rivers and avert the threat of flooding, for the first time in nearly three decades, officials said Wednesday.

If too much ice forms on a river, it may create a plug when cracking and moving, hampering the flow of water and causing upstream floods.

Serbia owns no icebreakers and had to hire two from Hungary to operate on the Danube, Sava and Kolubara rivers.

'This phenomenon is very rare. The last time we needed icebreakers was in the winter of 1984-85,' Aleksandar Prodanovic of the Serbian waters directorate told B92 radio.

The critical points were on rivers Danube, Tisa (Tizsa), Velika Morava and Ibar rivers, Prodanovic said. The situation on Ibar, at the city of Kraljevo in central Serbia, is particularly dangerous.

Nenad Maric, of the interior ministry department for emergency situations, said the army may be called to blast the ice on the Ibar with explosives.

Temperatures in Serbia ranged early Wednesday from -21 to -9 degrees Celsius, amid an unusually cold spell.