ZAGREB, Dec 31 — The first mobile homes arrived today in central Croatia to shelter people whose houses were destroyed in a deadly earthquake, as minor tremors continued to shake the area.
A 6.4-magnitude quake rocked the region of Petrinja, one of Croatia’s poorest, on Tuesday killing seven people and shaking buildings already weakened by a moderate tremor a day earlier.
Since Tuesday, the Petrinja area has been hit by a series of tremors, including another 3.7-degree quake this morning, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Today trucks transported some 20 mobile homes, donated by local hotels and firms, to the affected region.
“The first people can sleep in them already tonight,” Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac told reporters.
More than 60 additional mobile homes for some 500 people should get there in the coming days, officials said.
“It is still hard to say how many buildings were damaged, but we know that more than 3,500 were destroyed,” head of the quake-hit county Ivan Zinic told reporters.
More than 50 buildings were razed to the ground and some 200 families need shelter, he said.
Many residents of Petrinja, the town of some 20,000 people, nearby Sisak and surrounding villages spent the second consecutive night in their cars or on the streets fearing new stronger earthquakes.
The victims of the quake included a young girl struck by falling debris on a street in Petrinja, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the capital Zagreb where it tore off bricks and left cracks in some building facades.
“It is the worst time of the year to be homeless” due to cold, Silvana Velic from the village of Majske Poljane, where five people were killed, told AFP earlier.
After spending the night in a car her four children and husband slept the second one in a donated camping trailer.
Red Cross volunteers today continued to distribute food, clothes, blankets and personal hygiene products.
Some 850 households were still without electricity last evening, the national power firm HEP said.
Late Wednesday a Greek military plane brought humanitarian aid including dozens of tents and electric heaters as well as hundreds of beds and sleeping bags, the interior ministry said.
The EU’s crisis management chief, Janez Lenarcic, visited Petrinja on Wednesday pledging the bloc’s support to the member state.
The Balkans lie near fault lines and see regular seismic activity. — AFP
