Bosnia grapples with widespread power outages after heavy snowstorm

Tens of thousands of homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina were left without electricity on Monday, particularly in the northern part of the Balkan country, after it was hit by heavy snow and strong winds, the local electricity provider announced.

"At the moment, around 60,000 customers are without electricity," Elektroprivreda BiH, one of the three distributors in the country, said in a statement.

Some 130,000 homes, institutions, and businesses were without power for several hours during the morning, but teams sent to the scene were able to repair several outages, according to the same source.

"The outages on the network were caused by intense snowfall, accompanied by wind," they explained.

The Una-Sana Canton, in the region of the city of Bihac (northwest), is the most affected, but thousands of homes are also without electricity in the region of Tuzla (northeast) and the region of Zenica (center).

At the same time, another supplier, Elektrokrajina, which also supplies electricity in the north of the country, said distribution in its area is seriously disrupted.

Around fifty medium voltage power lines are down, partially depriving several towns, including Prijedor and its surroundings, as well as many villages, of electricity.

"All our teams are on the ground to repair the breakdowns," the distributor said in a statement.

The storm is expected to intensify in the coming days, according to the Meteorological Institute of the Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia, which is predicting up to 100 cm (three feet) of snow in mountainous regions by Tuesday evening.

On Monday, at midday, traffic was disrupted on many roads, particularly in the north of the country and at higher elevations in the center of the country.

Bosnia, whose capital Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, experienced a particularly dry winter in 2023/2024, with almost no snow, which subsequently caused the levels of rivers and lakes to drop during the year.

Heavy rainfall caused major flooding in October, killing 27 people, most of them in the Jablanica region (southwest).