Group of 38 Hungarian tourists stranded in Slovenia hotel after violent storms

A group of 38 Hungarian tourists were stranded in Slovenia due to extreme weather conditions on Saturday. The travellers were staying in a four-star hotel in Laško when the flooding of the Savinja river put them in a dangerous situation. There have already been three fatalities in Slovenia due to the extreme harsh weather.

Group of Hungarians stranded in Slovenia

A group of 38 Hungarian tourists are stranded in the town of Laško in eastern Slovenia. One of them reported to Index, along with several media outlets, from the scene how the four-star hotel on the banks of the Savinja River where they were staying was flooded.

“At 7 AM, the sirens of the emergency services could already be heard. Staff members went from room to room to warn us of the danger,” recalled Boglárka Szabó, one of the Hungarians stranded in Slovenia. You can check out the photos Szabó and the others took HERE.

The group was due to leave the hotel on Saturday. However, their departure, scheduled for 10 AM, was cancelled due to the storms. The roads around the hotel were already impassable by that time, so the Hungarian group, preparing to leave, returned to the hotel, 444.hu reports.

Hotel flooded, bridges floating

The hotel’s underground car park was flooded, so staff broke into several cars to move them to a safer location. Firefighters even attempted to pump the water out, but this failed as the water level kept rising.

Boglárka Szabó noted that the lift shafts were also full of water, so many people had to use the stairs. There were also a number of Paralympians in the hotel who were particularly badly affected by the situation. The water flooded the ground floor and the reception area, and hotel staff also used PUR foam, rags and sandbags to try to reduce the inflow of water.

“The water flow and level of the Savinja River, next to the hotel, has risen dramatically, bringing with it a lot of debris such as refrigerators, car tyres, oil drums, hay bales, factory pipes and much more. Much of this was caught on bridges that cross the rivers. No wonder the bridges were also floating,” the message concluded. The city and its region have received about 200 mm of rainfall in just 12 hours.

Deaths caused by extreme weather

There have been several deaths in the extreme weather in Slovenia. So far, at least three people have died in the country. One of them was a Slovak citizen, while the other two were Dutch. They all died in the area of the city of Kranj. The exact cause and details of their deaths have not yet been released by the authorities, Index writes.