Release of 23.05.2014
The Telekom Austria Group will donate EUR 60,000 in support of the flood victims in Southeast Europe. The Holding company and all Group subsidiaries have agreed to make this donation to provide aid and give their contribution to this emergency situation.
Moreover, all employees were called upon to show their solidarity with the victims of this flood disaster. As an emergency measure, food, tools, baby clothing and toiletries were collected.
The 'flood of the century' has caused billions worth of damage to the infrastructure. The exact extent of the damages is not yet calculable but will be estimated over the next days and weeks. Especially in emergency situations, every minute counts and communication with the rescue teams is essential to survival. Since part of the Telekom Austria Group's infrastructure in the flood-hit regions was damaged, engineers in Croatia and Serbia have been working round the clock for days to limit the damages and restore network coverage. Vip mobile, the Group's Serbian subsidiary, has made satellite phones available for rescue teams to ensure communication with the affected areas. Moreover, customers of all network providers can call emergency numbers free of charge. The Croatian subsidiary Vipnet offers all customers in the flood-hit parts of the country free calls and free text messages across all networks as well as free data traffic within Croatia.
A1 in Austria has just sent an emergency container and Mobiltel in Bulgaria has provided eight generators for emergency power supply to support colleagues on site. Meanwhile the systems are almost up and running, only the flooded areas have temporarily been equipped with replacements.
In addition, a number of initiatives were started to provide assistance and partly mitigate the consequences of this devastating natural disaster. Vip mobile, the Serbia subsidiary, supports the Red Cross making assembly centers for evacuees available and offering pre-paid mobile phones, charging devices, WLAN routers as well as USB sticks for free Internet. Thanks to the support of the Telekom Austria Group and the Slovenian subsidiary Si.mobil, Vip mobile was also able to provide the Ministry of the Interior with six additional satellite phones. In Serbia, several Vip mobile's employees were affected by the flood and had to be evacuated. The company currently offers emergency accommodation for its employees and their families in hotels.