March 26, 2020 – Residents of the epicentre of Sunday’s earthquakes north of Zagreb are more than a little frustrated. Local resident and Zagreb University journalist student Karla Lemaic gives them a voice.
I am still young at 51, but I swear I cannot remember a time like this in my short life. The world is INSANE at the moment, and nowhere more so than Croatia.
On top of the coronavirus which is dominating life all over the globe, lite in Croatia now is simply nuts. Just this week alone, in addition to the corona, we had large fires, snow in Spring after none in Winter, and …
Earthquakes.
Lots of earthquakes.
The first rocked the Croatian capital on Sunday at 06:24. I was quite proud that TCN managed to have the first story in English live on Google News just 15 minutes later at 06:39, with me writing in bed on the island of Hvar, some 400 km south of the seismic shocks.
In fact, as the TCN team responded to the earthquakes, I was really proud of the TCN coverage. There were only three of us actively writing, all confined more or less to our homes in Split, Zagreb and Jelsa (if you have ever wondered what it is like running a news portal in a foreign language when you are not allowed to travel and are surrounded by corona and earthquakes, it is something like this).
But then, a voice of conscience informing me that we had missed one very important part of the story.
“Is it ok if I write something about the epicentre of the earthquake? The people there are suffering and have been totally ignored.” An incoming message from TCN intern Janja Sestak, who turned my agreement to her suggestion into this.
Not content to leave the story there, Janja then told me about a colleague of hers at the university called Karla Lemaic, who had done a great video about the earthquake, its aftermath, and the lack of support despite the visits of the Prime Minister and Mayor of Zagreb.
If Janja translated the video and did all the subtitles, was there a chance to publish the video on TCN?
Yes, indeed! Great work to both of you. I have yet to meet Karla, but look forward to buying her and Janja a very large drink when this madness is over. Check out the video below.
For the latest coverage of the Zagreb earthquakes, follow the dedicated TCN section.
