Flood-hit areas told watercourse repair priority
Braslovče, 27 August - Boštjan Šefic, the official coordinating the reconstruction effort in the wake of the devastating early August flooding, visited the heavily hit Upper Savinja Valley on Sunday, telling the local officials that the clean-up and repair of watercourses was a priority, along with the reconstruction of roads.
Ljubno
Boštjan Šefic, a state secretary in charge of post-flood reconstruction coordination, visits the Upper Savinja Valley to discuss flood repair efforts.
Photo: Bor Slana/STA
Ljubno
Boštjan Šefic, a state secretary in charge of post-flood reconstruction coordination, visits the Upper Savinja Valley to discuss flood repair efforts.
Photo: Bor Slana/STA
Ljubno
Boštjan Šefic, a state secretary in charge of post-flood reconstruction coordination, visits the Upper Savinja Valley to discuss flood repair efforts.
Photo: Bor Slana/STA
Addressing reporters after a meeting with the region's mayors in Braslovče, the state secretary said another task at hand was restoring drinking water supply.
Some of the municipalities are still without potable water after the flooding, which hit large parts of north and central Slovenia in early August, damaging or wiping out houses, businesses and infrastructure. The Upper Savinja Valley and the Koroška region in the north of the country were hit hardest.
Šefic also discussed post-flood reconstruction with the mayors. He announced that the government will deploy more building machinery to the flood-stricken areas.
He promised that those who lost their homes would be taken care of and the government would leave no one behind, but said the situation could not be solved overnight and priorities needed to be set.
Some of the municipalities do not have substitute housing to offer, so Šefic promised optimal alternative solutions to be sought.
Based on previous assessments, the government would take expropriation proceedings against individual landowners if necessary to build dry detention basins.
Braslovče Mayor Tomaž Žohar said they were currently repairing the most critically hit areas. They are meeting Water Agency officials on Monday to set out measures and timeline to deal with the most critical issues as soon as possible.
Asked about the plans to move out the whole population of Letuš, a settlement in the municipality, from what is a flood-prone area, he said the case was currently in intergovernmental talks.
"We aim to ensure quality resettlement in a healthy living environment, and will not accept half-way solutions or ghetto settlements. We have already identified a site for resettlement that is flood and earthquake safe, as well as landslide-safe," said the mayor.
He urged repairing the Savinja water bed as a priority because the river's flow is eight million cubic metres in the event of high waters.
With storms and heavy rains forecast for parts of Slovenia on Monday, the Environment Agency has warned that fresh flooding is possible in areas already hit by August flooding.