Strong Earthquake Strikes Central Croatia

At least one particular person was killed and a city in central Croatia was left in ruins after a robust 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck on Tuesday, in response to the U.S. Geological Survey and native officers.

The full extent of casualties was not identified. There had been stories that the quake, which hit simply after midday native time about 30 miles from the capital, Zagreb, could possibly be felt throughout the Balkans and as far-off as Hungary.

The epicenter of the quake was close to the city of Petrinja, and the mayor, Darinko Dumbovic, instructed Croatian state tv that a minimum of one persona 12-year-old woman, had been killed. He mentioned he had walked by her physique on the road.

“This is a catastrophe,” he mentioned. “My city is completely destroyed.”

“We need firefighters, we don’t know what’s under the surfaces, a roof fell on a car, we need help,” he mentioned in an emotional phone interview from the scene that was broadcast on Croatian state tv.

“Mothers are crying for their children,” he mentioned.

Images from the city on social media and native tv stations confirmed streets strewn with rubble, buildings with roofs caved in and rescue crews dashing to seek for individuals who could have been trapped.

In the moments after the earth stopped shaking, orange mud crammed the air as automotive alarms sounded, church bells clanged and shouts for survivors echoed by way of streets.

In one dramatic rescue, a person and a baby had been pulled from a automotive buried beneath particles. The mayor instructed native reporters that he didn’t know the situation of the 2 individuals however that they seemed to be alive.

“I also heard that the kindergarten collapsed,” he mentioned, including: “But fortunately there were no children” within the constructing on the time.

The Red Cross in Croatia mentioned it was a “very serious” scenario.

The earthquake was the second to strike the world in two days, after a 5.2-magnitude tremor Monday morning broken buildings and stoked fears in a area with a historical past of seismic exercise.

It got here solely hours after Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and President Zoran Milanovic toured the middle of Petrinja to survey injury from the primary quake.

While that first tremor brought on no accidents, Mr. Dumbovic mentioned that many buildings had been broken, placing them in a precarious situation when the second quake struck.

He mentioned that there had been a number of small earthquakes in current days and that many residents had been afraid to spend the night time of their homes.

In Zagreb, the place individuals ran out into the streets through the quake, many determined to disregard the ban on journey put in place to restrict the unfold of coronavirus and go away town.

In neighboring Slovenia, the state information company mentioned the nation’s sole nuclear energy plant, situated about 60 miles from the epicenter, was shut down as a precaution.

The Paks nuclear energy plant in Hungary mentioned in a press release it had not shut down manufacturing though the earthquake had been felt there.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, mentioned she had requested Janez Lenarcic, the European commissioner for disaster administration, to face able to journey to Croatia to offer help.

The area is liable to earthquakes, and specialists have warned that the Balkan nations in southeastern Europe have failed to address the risks posed by getting old buildings.

While many cities and villages hint their roots again a whole lot of years, a constructing growth that happened within the Nineteen Nineties, through the transition to capitalism from Communism, typically meant that buildings had been constructed with out regard for security requirements.

The result’s that tens of millions of individuals dwell in buildings which are unlikely to outlive a significant earthquake, specialists say.

In Croatia, the scars of previous quakes are nonetheless seen in locations like Dubrovnik, the place a quake in 1667 leveled practically a 3rd of town and killed greater than 5,000 individuals.

Alisa Dogramadzieva and Joe Orovic contributed reporting.