Images amazing filmed this afternoon on the streets of Reșita. It was a flood after a torrential rain. A break in the clouds caused the water to flow furiously down the slopes and sweep away everything in its path. The cars were carried away by the torrents and crashed into each other. Quantitatively important precipitation will also fall in the coming days, say meteorologists.
Anamaria Ianc, journalist Digi24: Flooding wreaked havoc this afternoon in the west of the country. At this time, the Arad firemen intervene at several households within the radius of Păiușeni to evacuate the water brought by the floods.
Also, in the same locality, two people were caught in the middle of the water and the intervention of rescuers was needed so that they could be taken to a safe place.
Unfortunately, dozens of cars were washed away by the floods on the streets of several towns.
People watched helplessly as the waters flooded their homes. It required the intervention of the rescuers who are still on the scene, and who will intervene where needed.
The bad news doesn’t stop there. A hydrological code orange has been issued for several rivers in this area. It is in effect until 12:00 tonight, and flooding levels are expected to exceed.
Also today, the firefighters in Arad evacuated the water from 13 wells that were clogged, also due to the heavy rainfall that fell in the last hours.
The general warning is doubled by code orange rainfall warnings. Now, Vâlcea county is under alert for torrential rains. More than 30 liters of water per square meter will accumulate, given that in the last hour, approximately 25 l/m2 have accumulated in the warned area.
There were six days in a row with warnings, all aimed at the west of the country, and for the next two days at least, the rains will also be concentrated on the west side.
Mihai Huștiu, ANM meteorologist: Regarding what happened in the Reșita area, indeed, the rains were intense, in the area of the Reșita locality they varied between 25 and 31 liters per square meter, and to the east of the municipality the amount of water recorded between 15:10 and 16:10, so in about an hour, it was somewhere at 67 liters per square meter, that’s why there was this flooding. Torrents formed on the slopes in the area and I saw what happened.
In addition to the yellow code in the morning, 7 more orange code warnings were issued that targeted several counties in the western part of the country, including the Vâlcea area. In the last hour, 34 liters fell per square meter.
Until 23:00, the yellow code remains in force, which refers to the expected torrential rains, hail and wind intensification in certain areas in the western and southwestern part of the country, but also in the extreme south -east.
As far as the evolution is concerned, we will see that in the next two days the atmospheric instability remains pronounced also in the western and southwestern part of the country. In other words, in Banat, Crișana, Oltenia, western Transylvania.
Both tomorrow and Wednesday we expect that in limited areas of these regions, phenomena of accentuated atmospheric instability will appear again, i.e. torrential rains accompanied by frequent electrical discharges, hail and possibly wind intensifications and even hurricanes.
From May 22 until now, there has not been a day in which we did not issue warnings regarding heightened atmospheric instability. No such warning was issued on the 23rd, but since then atmospheric instability has manifested itself regularly every day.
As for the western part of the country, and especially in the Caraș-Severin county, the amounts recorded so far – for example at the Semenic station exceeded 100 liters per square meter, and in Reșita we had, including the amount recorded today, somewhere around 70 of liters per square meter. Therefore, the effects were somehow amplified by the soil already soaked with water, the rather high flows in the area.
But if we look at what has happened so far in May as a whole, in terms of the average amount, we are still below normal. May is generally a month that sees large amounts of water across the country, but so far, if we average it out, we’re still below that.
I specify that this accentuated atmospheric instability was manifested in small areas of the country, there were such amounts in a point-like manner, there were not large amounts over extended areas, so that the average at country level exceeded the norm.
June is coming, which usually brings us heavy rain every day, instability should continue to be pronounced. As our forecast for the next few weeks shows, we may still have significant amounts of higher than normal water in June by June 19th.
Editor: Liviu Cojan
