The Flood in Vidin 1942

The biggest flood in the history of Vidin struck the city in the early spring of 1942, when the Second World War was raging. The scale of the disaster is enormous, the catastrophe damage. At that time, a large part of the young men of Vidin were in Vardar Macedonia in the ranks of the Third Bin 'Infantry Regiment and at the disposal of the city is only a small military unit. However, the actions of the authorities were then perfectly orginized. 13 men and women are killed, and the evacuation of 19,000 people from the then 20,000 Vidin population is done in short time and without panic. In the winter of 1942 the temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees and the Danube freezes. They put the students several times on vacation because of the cold, says 88-year-old Mrs. Ignatova, who at that time was a student in the girls' high school. She is one of the few remaining living eyewitnesses, but now she remembers in detail the terrible events. On March 4, her class had gymnastics, when about 16 hours their teacher Stefka Antonova gave them away and told them to come back because there could be a flood. 88-year-old Mrs. Ignatova is among the witnesses to the flood of Vidin since 1942. Instead, the students went to the shore where the Vidin people were piling up to watch the huge ice blocks passing through. a sign of Stambol Kapija to date shows where the water was. Despite the lingering anticipation that something could happen, no one expected the ice to rise to the bend on the island of Bogdan and would become a real dam. The bad thing really happens, and only hours later. On the night of March 5, the town sleeps, when the waters of the Danube cease to drain, about 2:30 h, the terrestrial dikes and turn Vidin into a huge lake. The water is from 2 to 5 meters, and the river spills to the surrounding villages of Vidbol and Smardan. The trouble is literally a matter of minutes, and what the eyewitnesses remember today is the rumbling of the river.