A combination of heavy rain, bad infrastructure, and even worse emergency preparedness No surprise there. This guy is the head of Serbia’s department for emergency response. resulted in Serbia and Bosnia having the worst floods in more than a century.
Dozens are dead, and tens of thousands misplaced. Government officials are having nervous breakdowns on live TV, calling the flood “a Biblical catastrophe”—since touting vast water resources as your country’s main asset isn’t a hint as to what big disaster you should prepare for. In case you’re wondering, the Netherlands' last big flood was in 1953.
And of course a high priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church blamed it on Gay Pride. Because religion. Though I shouldn’t be that sarcastic, since the Orthodox Church is, in fact, trying to help. By praying for the rain to stop.
If you have a couple of minutes, please use PayPal to donate to floodrelief@gov.rs, the official account of the Serbian diplomatic mission in Brussels. If your bank allows international wire transfers, you can give directly to the Serbian Red Cross. While no one we know is affected, my grandparents had to leave their home twice over the past 50 years because of floods. The support they and their neighbors received from the Red Cross on both occasions was invaluable.