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Traffic moves slowly across a new pontoon bridge made of rusty barges in the centre of Novi Sad, one of the Serbian cities hardest hit during Nato's 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia.
But the wreckage of the town's three bridges across the Danube - twisted steel girders and huge slabs of concrete - lies undisturbed. The main navigation channel is blocked by submerged debris, disrupting commercial traffic along Europe's longest waterway.
At Serbia's second biggest oil refinery, a short distance downstream, dozens of blackened storage tanks overlook the river. Miroslav Spasiogevic, an environment ministry official, said more than 70,000 tonnes of oil products spilled into the Danube as a result of the bombing.
"A big part of the spillage burned on the surface of the water but several thousand tonnes of oil went into the river," he said. "There is an attempt being made to put the refinery back into partial operation but there's no money available for a pollution clean-up."
Before the war, Novi Sad, Serbia's second Danube port, was a hub for traffic on the river. Raw materials and oil travelled upstream from the Black Sea. Consumer goods and second-hand cars were transported from Germany to markets in south-east Europe. Today, traffic is all but at a standstill.
It would cost about $100m to clear wreckage from the bridges and reopen the full length of the Danube to commercial shipping, Mr Spasiogevic said. "We would have to blow up the concrete beneath the water into pieces small enough to be hoisted out. It would be a huge operation."
Novi Sad, with 250,000 residents, faces a grim winter. With the refinery out of action, there will be no fuel for the city's heating plant. Electricity is in short supply because Serbia's power transmission system was heavily damaged in the bombardment.
Logs are piled high in gardens and apartment balconies. Outside the city, large swathes of woodland bordering the Danube have been cut down to provide fuel for heating homes.
Hungary has expressed concern that ice could build up around the debris in the water, creating natural dams and causing massive flooding across the region.
But Serbia has said it will not allow the Danube to be cleared until Nato has paid for reconstruction of the three bridges it destroyed. So long as Serbia keeps to that position, and the Nato allies maintain their embargo on reconstruction aid for Serbia, no end is in sight to the problems caused either by the collapsed bridges or the blasted refinery.
Alexander, an Orthodox parish priest in a suburb of Novi Sad, said: "The mood is very depressed. Almost everyone in my parish is unemployed."
The city's water supply has been sharply reduced because the main pipeline ran beneath one of the bombed bridges. Mr Lausevic said that if contaminated soil from the refinery is not removed, oil will seep into the ground water system, which provides drinking water.
Rado Lausevic, a Belgrade university environmentalist, said: "Getting through the winter had become everyone's priority. But the destruction from the war will have much longer term effects."