Serbia's power and agricultural sector took the biggest hit from the heavy floods, Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told representatives of international development agencies and embassies on Thursday in Belgrade.
At the meeting, Vucic said Serbia would have to buy electricity until coal mining restarted in the Kolubara mines that are currently full of water. He added it would take "weeks and months" until production is gradually returned to the previous scale.
Vucic said between 75 and 83 thousand hectares of agricultural land was flooded in the 39 municipalities that were hit by floods. On marked roads 30 bridges collapsed, and 50 are damaged, while on unmarked or municipal roads 200 more bridges are damaged.
The prime minister said more than 2,200 houses had been flooded while some 1,700 of them were destroyed. Obrenovac in northern Serbia was the worst-hit town where the scale of damage is still being determined, he said.
Vucic said "flood damage go beyond 0.64 percent of GDP" which will qualify Serbia to apply for help from European Union funds, adding damages might even reach 1 billion euros (1.37 billion U.S. dollars).
Vucic said that the first buildings would be repaired with donations from the Norwegian government, and also thanked the governments of China and the United Arab Emirates.
He said that helicopters from Russia, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United States helped in rescue operations.
Vucic added a reconstruction plan would follow the damage assessment and would be brought in the next ten days.
Since a state of emergency was declared at a national level last Thursday, there have been 27 confirmed deaths so far with numbers set to rise.
"I hope I will be able to inform the public about the total number of victims by the end of this week," he said.
A total of 600 people still remain missing and more than 30,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Most of the evacuated are from Obrenovac on the confluence of Sava and Kolubara rivers, some 30 kilometres southwest of Belgrade.
Some 140 shelters have been opened across Serbia for evacuated people where they are taken care of by the Red Cross that received significant donations from citizens of Serbia as well as from all over the world.
