The Petrinja Earthquake
The Petrinja Earthquake Marin Veršić | Al Jazeera Balkans Correspondent – Croatia Nino Čučić | Al Jazeera Balkans Cameraman – Croatia
It was supposed to be one of those days where you know how it will start and end. After a swift live at noon covering news within the Banija region, central Croatia, my cameraman Nino Čučić and I rushed to catch at least a part of a press conference by Petrinja’s mayor. Then all of a sudden, the ground beneath our feet started trembling. The walls and rooftops crumbled, as I shouted in a panic to Nino: “Turn on the camera!” There was no need to tell him anything, the ‘on’ button had already been pressed, catching the few seconds
that changed the life of every person living in Sisak Moslavina county. Half of the town was completely destroyed. Construction material buried a couple of cars in the streets around us. The dust was up in the air for almost a minute. As it came down, we were able to process what was happening: we were at the epicentre of a 6.4 magnitude earthquake. People were calling out to each other and trying to phone their families.
As a fire brigade was about to pass us by, people stopped them, pointing to a car where a father and son were trapped. Locals had removed the boy, but the fire fighters had to cut the car in half to free the father. As I was about to go live, a man ran to me to say there were two girls dead under the rubble in a street near by. There was no way to check that. I literally had no information on anything. My impression was that just about anybody who was caught indoors at the moment of impact had little or no chance of survival.
When we reached the location the man had told us about, there was already a body covered in a white sheet. The girl was 15 years old. Her mother was in tears, unable to comprehend that her child was gone. After a couple of minutes, her father arrived and broke down.
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