SARAJEVO: Torrential downpour has flooded hundreds of homes and swamped roads in northern Bosnia, officials said Tuesday, as rescuers searched for a six-year-old boy swept away by a swollen stream.
The child went missing in the northern Zepce region, national television BHRT reported on Tuesday.
The heavy rain, which started Sunday, has sparked fears of a repeat of the 2014 floods that devastated the Balkan region, killing 77 people.
Weather services have predicted the rain will taper off.
Several Bosnian towns in the hardest-hit north have declared a state of emergency and begun protective evacuations.
More than 200 people have been evacuated in villages around northeastern Doboj, where two rivers have overflowed.
"About 100 houses were flooded, as well as the offices of five companies and 50 hectares of land," said civil defence official Senad Begic.
Floods have also hit around 200 households in northwest Prijedor and 100 east in the town of Celinac.
"The danger has not passed and I invite inhabitants to follow the instructions of the authorities, without panic," urged Radovan Viskovic, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Bosnian's Serb-run region.
Dozens of homes were also flooded in neighbouring Croatia, where eight tourists, including two children, were rescued by firemen at a campsite on the banks of the Korana river, national TV reported.
After rising rapidly overnight, water levels in major rivers are falling slightly or stagnating, according to weather services.
In the spring of 2014, the Balkans region was hit by its worst floods in more than a century, which affected 1.6 million people and caused an estimated two billion euros in damage, mostly to houses and farmland.
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