Recent measures help Ljubljana dodge major flooding

No people were injured or killed in the capital and no public institutions were flooded. Tap water remains safe to drink. Relief efforts are continuing as the weather is calming down.

Several houses have been flooded and some people needed to spend the night in emergency accommodation in Zalog in the east and in Tacen in the north, including 20 tourists, who got stuck in the capital due to severed road connections.

It was the Sava river that did some damage in the north of Ljubljana, wiping out the kayak installations in Tacen and flooding basements and living rooms, while similar scenes could be seen in the east in Sneberje.

Some flooding, but substantially more limited than for instance in 2010 and 2014, occurred in the western and souther parts of the capital, where the Gradaščica river wreaked havoc in the past.

The Ljubljana Marshes area in the south, traditionally hit worst, saw no noteworthy flooding at all, with experts and Mayor Zoran Janković agreeing that flood protection measures that were partly completed only very recently have paid major dividends.

"The flood protection measures on the Mali Graben watercourse and the Gradaščica are showing results. In fact, flooding only occurred in the Vič and Kozarje sections where the measures have not yet been completed," Janković told the press on Saturday.

The mayor, who had faced some opposition against the measures, argued that things would have turned out much worse without them and that he hopes everybody understands now that they are necessary, including the Razori detention basin.

Robert Kus, deputy commander of the Ljubljana Civil Protection unit, agreed, saying that around 20,000 people would have probably been affected this time, had it not been for the measures. He pointed out that more than 1,000 buildings had been flooded in Ljubljana in 2010.