A magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit 28 miles south of Zagreb, Croatia just before 12:20 pm on Tuesday, according to The European Mediterranean Seismological Center.
The town of Petrinja was the hardest hit by the earthquake, the Associated Press reports. One 12-year-old girl died as a result of the earthquake in this town of 25,000 people. Six others died in towns near Petrinja that were also decimated by the earthquake.
Moans and cries for help were heard across the town as firefighters quickly tried to work through the wreckage to reunite families with their missing loved ones.
One man and a small boy were rescued from a car which a collapsed building had fallen onto. “My town has been completely destroyed. We have dead children,” Petrinja Mayor Darinko Dumbovic said in a statement.
Another citizen said that 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.”
Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and other Croatian government officials arrived to help out. “The biggest part of central Petrinja is in a red zone, which means that most of the buildings are not usable,” Plenkovic said. He announced the Croatian army has 500 barracks ready to house people, and others will be accommodated in hotels and other places. Additionally, the president of the European Commission stated an envoy was en route to help out with recovery efforts.
This is the second earthquake to hit the area in recent days. On Monday, the town and surrounding area was hit with a 5.2 magnitude quake. Hundreds of buildings were damaged but there were no casualties in Monday’s quake, according to DW. According to structural engineer Branko Zlonoga, 500 buildings were damaged in the Monday quake.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/H Stocks
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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