People of Petrinja Working Tirelessly, Grateful, Anxious a Week after 6.2 Quake

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake, with the epicentre 3 km southwest of Petrinja, hit at 12.19 p.m. last Tuesday, razing to the ground a large part of the city and killing seven in the county.

Access roads to the city and its streets are still full of vehicles bringing relief from all over Croatia. The streets are full of residents, police, civil protection members, firefighters, volunteers as well as those who look as if they have come to the demolished city as tourists. There are also many journalists, including two from South Korea.

Croatian flags are displayed on many houses, in front of which are tonnes of rubble.

“Only as I was coming here did I realise how much has been destroyed,” said a police officer who came to Petrinja from another town.

The busiest location in the city centre is War Veterans Square, from which booths put up for a Christmas fair have not been removed yet. Tents have been erected to distribute food and other relief. Many people are waiting in line for the food, while a few metres away the army is chopping wood for burning which looks as if it came from furniture in demolished houses.

“Cake? Who needs cake?” echoes around the square and the answer comes quickly.

This morning, for the first time since the main tremor, the sun shone above Petrinja. “We are scared. That day too it was beautiful like this,” a local woman said.

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