The Croatian mountain rescue service HGSS carries out around 800 operations a year, with 85 percent of the people they rescue Croatian nationals, state news agency Hina said on Friday, citing a publicly released report by the HGSS.

Of those 800 or so operations, roughly 500 are “standard rescue operations,” 250 are searches, 25 operations are conducted on bodies of water, and 25 are helicopter operations, Hina cited HGSS as saying.

The number of rescue operations is eight times higher than in 1998, when there were around 100 such operations per year. The number of HGSS stations has thus been increased from 12 to 25 and the number of volunteers from 250 to 1,150.

“In recent years the number of visitors to our mountains and rivers has increased tenfold and our operations have been increasingly prompted by the consequences of climate change – rainstorms, floods, and blizzards,” said Jadran Kapovic, head of the HGSS commission for information and analysis.

Due to the rise in the number of rescue operations, the HGSS has been continually involved in educational campaigns aimed at improving the overall security situation in the country, Hina said.