Worthy Christian News > World News > Croatia Quake Kills 7, Impacts 12 Nations

Croatia Quake Kills 7, Impacts 12 Nations

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – A desperate search for survivors continues in central Croatia after a massive earthquake killed seven people, injured dozens, and shook neighboring nations.

“My town has been completely destroyed. We have dead children,” said the mayor of Petrinja, Darinko Dumbovic

His town of some 25,000 people, 46 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of Zagreb, suffered colossal damage. “This is like Hiroshima – half of the city no longer exists,” added Dumbovic about the quake rattling his town just before 12:20 p.m. local time.
A magnitude 5.2 quake struck the same area on Monday, authorities said.

Officials said a 12-year-old girl died in Petrinja, while another six people were killed in nearly destroyed villages close to the town.

At least 26 people were hospitalized, six with severe injuries, and officials said that many more people remained missing.

CRIES BENEATH RUBBLE

In Petrinja, cries could be heard from underneath destroyed houses. One woman was found alive some four hours after the quake. Emergency teams used rescue dogs in the search for survivors, while family members looked on in despair.

Firefighters worked to remove the debris from a collapsed building that fell on a car. A man and a small boy eventually were rescued from the vehicle and carried into an ambulance.

And, Petrinja was left without electricity or running water as officials scrambled to set up temporary accommodation for all of the displaced residents in need.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and other government ministers arrived in the town after the earthquake. “The biggest part of central Petrinja is in a red zone, which means that most of the buildings are not usable,” Plenkovic said.

He told reporters that the army has 500 places ready in barracks to house people. Others will be accommodated in nearby hotels and other sites. “No one must stay out in the cold tonight,” the prime minister said, referring to the bitter Balkan winter.

QUAKE BABY DELIVERED

Officials later toured a damaged hospital in the nearby town of Sisak, which was also severely hit by the earthquake. There was also a new life between destruction and death. Health officials said a baby was delivered in a tent in front of the hospital after the earthquake.

Prime Minister Plenkovic pledged that the hospital’s patients would be evacuated in army helicopters and ambulances. As a Mediterranean country, Croatia is prone to earthquakes, but usually not big ones. Earlier this year, a Worthy News reporter was in the capital Zagreb when the nation’s then biggest quake in 140 years shook the area, killing a teenage girl and injuring 26 people.

The March 22 tremor also damaged Zagreb’s famed cathedral, a symbol of the heavily Catholic country. It destroyed nearly two thousand homes and other buildings.

Tuesday’s quake was even more deadly and added to the misery in a nation still struggling to overcome the devastating Balkan wars of the 1990s. It also shook Zagreb, where people rushed onto the streets, some of which were strewn with broken roof tiles and other debris, reporters witnessed.

Patients and medical staff were evacuated from Zagreb’s Sveti Duh Hospital, with many left sitting in chairs in the street wrapped in blankets.

EU PLEDGES AID

The European Union’s executive expressed concern. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she spoke with Plenkovic and instructed an envoy to travel to Croatia, as soon as possible.

The quake hitting Croatia, an EU-member state Croatia, was also felt in nearby nations, including Bosnia, where over a thousand refugees are freezing after their camp burned down last week.

In Austria’s second city Graz, about 200 kilometers (130 miles) north of Petrinja, tall buildings reportedly wobbled for about two minutes.

In Austria’s Carinthia province, about 300 kilometers to the northwest of Petrinja, the earth trembled for several minutes, and people described how their furniture, Christmas trees, and lamps moved.

In Slovenia, the STA news agency said the country’s sole nuclear power plant, 100 km (60 miles) from the epicenter, was shut down as a precaution. Croatian media said the quake was felt in a total of 12 countries.

Back in Croatia, many Petrinja residents, fearing another earthquake, spent the night outside their homes. Marica Pavlovic said the quake felt “worse than a war.” “It was horrible, a shock. You don’t know what to do, whether to run out or hide somewhere.”