Podujevo municipality details flood damage

Immediately, snow and rain rains have caused the rise in water level and the flow of rivers and streams, causing flooding in some communities in the Podujevo municipality.

The Podujevo municipality, through a media communique, has said that until Sunday the water level has fallen across all the rivers, due to the massive discharge of water from Lake Batislava, the level of the Batlava River has risen, which has caused floods in several villages.

The floods caused on Saturday as a result of the melting of snow and rain rains, says the Comuna, have also caused water to penetrate courtyards and houses in a city suburb and in some villages.

The “Despite the huge volume of water, which has caused the flow of rivers and streams from the beds, over the weekend there are no municipalities or neighbourhoods blocked in the Podujevo municipality. The municipal emergency team, under the Public Services Directorate and the contracted company for machine intervention, are in the field all the time to intervene in river beds, avoid damage and eventual evacuation of citizens”, the Podujevo municipality says.

To closely convey the created situation, the mayor of the Podujevo municipality, Agim Veliu, along with the emergency team, yesterday and today has visited areas affected by the floods.

Veliu has, in this case, called on citizens from the areas affected by the floods to co-operate with the municipal teams and contribute jointly to overcome this situation with as little damage as possible.

The director of the Directorate for Public Services, Protection and Rescue, Faik Muchiqi, says that during Sunday's field visit, the water level has fallen across all the rivers except the river flowing from Lake Batlava, where there is a rise in the level as a result of the discharge of water from the lake.

“As a result of the rise of the level in this river of water penetrated the courtyard of this village and caused floods in the villages of Batlava, Gerdoc and Bellopoja”, the Podujevo municipality said.

In addition, this municipality says that on Saturday the municipal emergency team along with the contracted company has in some cases been interverteting river flows, separately to bridges.

The floods have caused greater problems for residents of the neighbourhood “Tovrinani” at the entrance of the city, Svechel, Balloc, West and other villages along rivers.

In two cases the emergency team has made temporary evacuations of two families as a preventative measure.

The city and villages of the Podujevo municipality on Sunday are also facing reductions in drinking water, due to limited drinking water processing capacities at the Shajkoc Water Factory, due to the pollution of Batlava Lake water. Along with the municipal emergency team is the commission that is making an assessment of the damage caused by the 48x1> floods, the Komuna points out.

In spite of the huge volume of water caused by rapid melting of snow and rainfall, with investments made by the Community in expanding rivers of cleanup, the risk of floods of greater proportions has been averted. Over the past four years, the Podujevo municipality has invested in expanding and cleaning river beds at a length of 45km. However, close to 300 thousand euros of investments in cleanup and expansion of the Llap and Dumnica rivers are planned for this year at a length of nearly 15km<1>, the Podujevo municipality has ended.