Record floods hit Balkans

Emergency crews and volunteers struggled to keep embankments and sand barriers from giving way yesterday amid record flooding along the Danube and its tributaries in northern Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans.

In Romania, the government ordered controlled flooding of thousands of hectares (acres) of farmland to stave off threats to communities along the Danube. Hundreds of residents were evacuated in southern Romania after a dam collapsed and the river threatened over 130 houses in the village of Rast.