ZADAR, Croatia – After the night combed through the ruins of fallen buildings for survivors of a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 that shook central Croatia, the search and rescue operation on Wednesday shifted the gears to focus on tens of thousands of people left homeless.
The quake, the second that hit the area in two days, and the strongest recorded in the country in 140 years, killed at least seven people and left dozens with people with broken bones, concussions and other injuries.
Although aid workers rushed to the area, strong aftershocks shook the city hardest hit, Petrinja, as well as neighboring Sisak and Glina, about 30 km from the capital Zagreb.
Every time the earth shook, the few people who could return to their homes poured out into the streets and threw their eyes nervously between the sky above and the unsteady ground below.
After an early morning mist burned down, the day revealed the extent of the destruction.
Roofs slipped off houses and left mountains of rubble on the street. Other houses collapsed. The video shot by local media showed the exterior walls crumbling into one, while a dining table inside remained undisturbed for a short lunch.
Some of the hardscrabble villages outside Petrinja appear to be level, with few houses standing.
“This is not a good morning,” Petrinja Mayor Darinko Dumbovic told Croatia’s state television during an early morning interview. He spoke shortly after two aftershocks – one with a 4.8 and another with a strength of 4.7 – shook loose bricks from damaged buildings.
“What has not fallen before, is now falling from the ruins,” he said.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said it was clear the city was no longer suitable for human habitation.
The rapid response of many residents during the earthquake apparently helped to make the numbers of casualties even worse.
Already on the brink because of the smaller earthquake that occurred on Monday, many people had the chance to think about how to react when the larger earthquake hit.
When the earth began to tremble on Tuesday, Tomislav Suknajic and his son Zeljko went to the nearest door. The house began to crumble around them. When the quake stops, their small town of Majske Poljane is reduced to a heap of rubble. Five of the seven people who died in the quake lived in the area.
“We were waiting to die under the door together,” he said. Suknajic told state TV. “We stumbled upon a wall that remained intact for as long as possible.”
The pair stepped forward largely intact and grabbed a chainsaw to free a horse trapped under a collapsed barn. The horse lived.
Mr Suknajic and his son slept in a car that night and refused to have another roof over their heads, fearing it would crumble around them again.
The residents of Petrinja and surrounding areas were already living through turbulent times before the week’s disaster.
The city was one of the first to be torn apart by military conflict during the Balkan Wars, which were overtaken by the armed forces of what was then Yugoslavia in 1991. The siege eventually exploded in the blazing fire that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Petrinja has since shrunk.
It was one of the largest cities in Croatia, and it has made citizens bloody over the past few years, with less than 25,000 people making it home before the earthquake.
This is part of a larger demographic crisis that has led to the shrinking of the total population of Croatia by 4.2 million, as many young people are heading to richer countries with more job opportunities. According to the World Bank, the population will decrease to 3.46 million by 2050. And the European Union estimates that 15 percent of working-age Croats live in other member states.
Dumbovic, the mayor, said the earthquake recovery was also a struggle for the town’s existence.
The Croatian government has so far allocated 120 million kunas, about $ 19.5 million, in aid and has promised that more will come. Janez Lenarcic, head of the European Union crisis management, said the bloc was also preparing to help.
“At the moment, mostly winter tents, electric heaters, sleeping beds and sleeping bags are needed as well as housing containers,” said Mr. Lenarcic wrote on Twitter.
But the recovery efforts are hampered by the ongoing struggle to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.
While the government is rapidly trying to lift a ban on travel between districts to allow aid workers and volunteers to the region, it still has to contend with a virus that is on the rise in the country, just as in a large part of Europe.
The 40 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the area were relocated to Zagreb. But social distance will be a major challenge for the tens of thousands of people who are forced to live in hastily arranged haste.
Nursing home residents were evacuated to Zagreb and other nearby facilities. But some remain tied to their battered homes. Cautious residents, most of them elderly, walked around campfires along the ruins of their homes, watching looters.
There was an outpouring of support from across the country, with humanitarian aid packages pouring out into the area so quickly that the Red Cross asked Croats to stop sending.
They had too many eggs and not enough propane containers, tents and generators, the organization said. Adjacent villages dependent on agriculture also needed mobile homes or trailers so that the inhabitants could stay with their livestock.
“Right now, we have to ask all the good people, donors, we have to stop a little bit,” Ivana Malovic of the local Red Cross said in an interview. “It will take a very long time. You see how the city was destroyed. “People will be hungry, they will have needs within five days, 15 days,” she added, but thanked donors for everything they have sent so far.
Thousands of people were housed in temporary shelters in nearby sports arenas and army facilities, but some residents refused to leave.
Dr Marina Lokner, president of the city’s Red Cross, said it was mostly older residents who were left behind.
“They came to us during the night to warm up in a tent,” she said.
The earthquake on Tuesday was the strongest recorded in Croatia with modern measurements, although the region experienced powerful tremors earlier in its history.
Tomislav Fiket, a Croatian seismologist, told state TV that more aftershocks could be expected and that caution was needed in the recovery efforts.
“All of these earthquakes that are already hitting damaged buildings could cause greater damage or cause it to fall,” he said.
Joe Orovic reports from Zadar, and Marc Santora from London.