ZAGREB, 11 January, 2021 - The leader of the We Can! platform Tomislav Tomašević said on Monday that the Zagreb City Administration should pay more attention to the safety of schools and kindergartens since classes begin in a week.
A lot of buildings are still not safe for passers-by due to damaged chimneys, parts of the facade, roof tiles and bricks. This need to be cleared up urgently because citizens' safety is at stake, Tomašević told reporters in front of the Ivan Gundulić Primary School.
Over 170 buildings, he said, were damaged in March, and according to City Administration data allegedly only 13 still need to be reconstructed and the reconstruction is under way.
He added that the latest earthquake that hit the Petrinja area increased the damage sustained in March in the centre of the city, in Podsljeme neighbourhoods and in the south in Brezovica.
He said that the safety of schools and kindergartens had to be ensured in three ways.
According to Tomašević, the structural safety of buildings needs to be determined and presented to all parents, safe access to the buildings of schools and kindergartens must be ensured for children and everyone else, and greater safety of children must be ensured in case of new earthquakes, especially through a revision of the existing evacuation plans and protocols.
Asked whether he knew how many houses were destroyed in the Petrinja earthquake that had been reconstructed after the Homeland War, Tomašević said that those had not been isolated cases and that he did not know exactly how many but that the number was not low.
He said that a parliamentary commission of inquiry was needed and that they wanted for the commission to be a joint initiative by the opposition.
"We expect, since the prime minister said he wanted it to be investigated, that the HDZ and the ruling majority support it," Tomašević said.
