ZAGREB, 24 Jan 2022 - President Zoran Milanović on Monday received representatives of the Croatian Earthquake Engineering Centre (HCPI) for talks on the state of buildings damaged in the 2020 earthquakes in Zagreb and the Banovina region.
HCPI was established last October and has become one of the fundamental operative forces within the Civil Protection Directorate, the president's office said in a press release.
HCPI representatives told the president their engagement is envisaged after major natural disasters when a larger number of structures is damaged and rapid response is required from engineers to professionally inspect the structures and provide a rapid evaluation of their usability.
They also talked about the state of buildings and houses damaged in the 2020 earthquakes as well as the importance of quality post-earthquake construction and reconstruction.
After the March 2020 quake in Zagreb, Zagreb Faculty of Civil Engineering professor and HCPI coordinator Josip Atalić brought together structural engineers who visited the damaged buildings and houses, did quick checks and issued stickers denoting their usability.
HCPI engineers inspected 25,580 buildings in the Zagreb area at that time, and another 813 buildings since.
HCPI representatives said they self-organised after the Zagreb earthquake and visited the area because there was no earthquake plan. They did the same after the earthquake in December 2020 in Sisak-Moslavina County, with 1,700 engineers volunteering in the inspections.
