(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
It's believed more than two million people have been affected by unprecedented flooding in the Balkans.
The devastation caused across Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia is being compared to that sustained during the 1990s wars.
As Kristina Kukolja reports, it's causing heartache in Australia's Balkan communities.
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It's still too soon to gauge the full extent of the damage done by days of record flooding in parts of the former Yugoslavia.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes.
In Bosnia, parts of which have been the hardest hit, it's being described as the biggest exodus since the 1990s conflict.
What the displaced will return to is unknown, as officials warn thousands of landslides have completely buried some villages.
Another one million people in Bosnia are without clean drinking water.
And there are those who are still stranded in areas that can only be reached by air or boat.
Some towns along the Sava River are bracing for a new surge of flooding.
Doboj, which has seen some of the worst damage, is where Perth-woman Duska Stanisic's 84-year-old aunt was trapped for days on the second floor of her apartment building.
(Translated) "The only help that could reach them was by way of people in boats who were going around passing on greetings and offering moral support, but weren't able to climb up the stairs. Together with my aunt there were children, and a pregnant woman. My other aunt in the same town was effectively a prisoner in her own apartment. She was on the fourth floor without drinking water, electricity, without anything."
Bosnia and Serbia have declared days of national mourning.
The death toll, now around 50 for all three countries, is expected to rise further.
Bodies are still being found in the town of Obrenovac, just outside the capital Belgrade.
Natalija Rusidin from Sydney says her parents and sister's family were forced to leave Obrenovac when their homes became submerged.
(Translated) "They first fled to another part of the city that was on higher ground. The floodwaters reached them there in the afternoon. They were stuck with very little drinking water or food, my sister and her children had to wade through knee-high water to safety. She's been left with nothing. She didn't even take her wallet. She just had her mobile phone. In the end they were evacuated by boat."
Those not being taken into private homes, are finding refuge in schools and community buildings, which have been turned into makeshift evacuation centres.
Volunteers working around the clock say they're desperately in need of drinking water, sanitary products, food, and medicines - particularly for the elderly.
Senada Softic Telalovic from Melbourne's Bosnian community says money from Australia will be sent to buy what's needed.
(Translated) "We've already organised for two large trucks to drive out to various areas in the Bosnian federation to deliver the most basic items such as food and drinking water. There is a great need for drinking water. We've promised to try and collect as much money as possible in the community here so that we're able to deliver as much food as possible to the most affected areas."
Mato Smolcic from Sydney's Croatian community centre Cardinal Stepinac Village, says collected donations will be used to buy aid for distribution through its affiliates in Bosnia's Croatian community. /
(Translated) "We are one people and the help we collect is distributed by the Croatian Catholic community in Bosnia. They will help as they always do in Croatia and in Bosnia. And from our community in Croatia we help Bosnia and Croatia. Our work has no borders."
Rising temperatures, and drowned livestock carcases have authorities warning of disease could soon begin to spread.
The World Health Organisation says it's working to send medical supplies as soon as possible.
It's certain help will also be needed by Bosnian authorities to locate thousands of unexploded wartime mines unearthed by the floods.
The European Union, United States and Russia have already sent teams to assist evacuations and clean up efforts in places where waters are beginning to recede.
Assisting Serbian rescuers, is a group of amateur radio operators.
Zika Petrovic is based at the Belgrade headquarters, relaying information about people in flooded areas to rescue services.
He says his team has processed an estimated 25,000 messages, received via the radiowaves, phone calls and SMS.
Some, he says,have even come from Australia.
(Translated) "I was the contact point between the diaspora [and rescuers] and I cannot say how many messages we were able to pass on, surely hundreds and hundreds of them. The second I received the information from Australia, I forward it to the central headquarters which then sends the message to the terrain, and deploys a rescue team. Even though the flooding seems to grow slowly, believe me, every second is important."
(This report was compiled with the help of SBS Radio's Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian programs)
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