Twice in one week, Serbia has faced unprecedented storms. The second on Friday evening left the country's second-largest city of Novi Sad severely impacted. The damage to homes and city infrastructure was substantial, with the storm claiming the life of a 12-years-old-boy. 

The havoc was preceded by several weeks of high temperatures, seen right across the rest of southern Europe. To make lives a bit easier under the scorching sun, many people sought to cool down in the country's rivers and lakes. 

But for some, those visits have resulted in tragedy, with several people having drowned.

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At the banks of the Sava River in Belgrade, police captain Marko Mladenovic - a professional diver in the Serbian Gendarmerie - is part of a unit with the grim task of searching for the people missing in the Serbian waterways. 

They had over 40 cases just this year.

"The worst is when you search for the missing children," Marko told CGTN Europe. "If we don't find them, and that's very rare, we feel tremendous guilt. If we find them drowned, then we are bringing them to the shore, where the devastated family awaits. The stress is enormous," he said.

Most of the people who have lost their lives drowned in unsecured rivers and lakes. But even with lifeguards, swimmers are not always safe. Ada Ciganlija is the lake in Belgrade, just a few kilometers from the city center. It has an organized lifeguard service, as its coordinator Jovan Lauševic explained.

"During the high temperatures, we increase the number of lifeguards to 45. This year, we had to intervene seven times. The majority of those were for the migrants who also found refuge here."

People have had to continue to work in the blistering heat and the local doctors say the hot weather is causing more heart-related issues. 

That's why they are giving practical advice on how to make the heart's job a bit easier.

"You need to carry some liquid and something sweet," doctor Ivana Stefanovic from Belgrade Medical Emergency Department explains.

"Your heart needs to have access to sugar so it won't need to do additional metabolic work to produce it," he says. 

His recommendations including drinking lemonade or tea with honey, and eating saltines crackers to replace electrolytes lost by sweating, as well as healthy snacks like peanuts, hazelnuts or almonds.

The forecast says that in the next few days Serbia will have a break in the heatwave. But after that, meteorologists predicent the hot weather will return with temperatures in the high 30Cs.

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