BUCHAREST (AFP) - Two shepherds struck by lightning were among 11 people killed by violent storms in Romania this week, and a man is missing, according to figures from local authorities released yesterday. The storms damaged more than 4,000 homes and about 700 bridges, while about 1,100 residents in the country’s center and north were evacuated from flooded areas. Hundreds of police and soldiers were deployed to help evacuate residents and repair roads and bridges.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - More than a quarter of Bulgaria’s 7.4 million people have been touched by flooding that has killed 20 and caused some $633 million in damage, the United Nations said late Thursday. Following more heavy rainfall last weekend, a state of emergency remained in force in 15 cities and unfavorable weather conditions were expected to continue in some parts of the country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The first Serb high school in Croatia will open in Zagreb in September, 10 years after the end of the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian conflict, the Serbian Orthodox Church announced yesterday. The school is to open with one class of pupils from Croatia, who had enrolled in the first grade, school headmaster Milan Topic told AFP. “We are finishing final works on the future school. We hope that it will help us to preserve our national identity and our culture,” said Topic, a priest. (AFP)

Some 150 Bosnian Serbs, angered by the killing of a Serb customs officer by his Muslim colleague, staged new protests yesterday and blocked the border crossing with Montenegro, an official told AFP. Muslim customs officer Anis Bandic, 29, shot his colleague Bojan Prodanovic, 34, several times at close range on Wednesday at a southeastern border crossing with Montenegro, sparking protests in nearby Cajnice. (AFP)

A moderate earthquake measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale shook southwestern Turkey early yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or material damage, the Anatolia news agency said. The epicenter of the tremor, which hit at 4.08 a.m. (0108 GMT), was in Gokova bay in the Aegean Sea off the province of Mugla, the Istanbul-based Kandilli observatory said. (AFP)