Caritas Internationalis has launched an appeal for €880,000 to help their Croatian affiliate provide safe living conditions and other basic necessities to people affected by a powerful earthquake that struck late last year.
Powerful aftershocks have continued to rock central Croatia after the earthquake on 29 December 2020, which struck roughly 50 km (30 mi) southeast of Zagreb and measured 6.4 on the Richter scale.
Three towns were hardest hit: Petrinja, Sisak, and Glina — but people felt the tremors in places as far away as Vienna. The December 29 temblor was the most powerful to hit the area in 140 years, and the second earthquake in as many days. The quake killed 7 people and injured more than 20 others. It also caused extensive damage.
“The ground has been shaking every day since the original earthquake,” said Caritas Croatia‘s deputy director, Suzana Borko, “and people are living in constant fear and stress.”
Borko described “a vast area of around 2000 square kilometres (nearlyly 800 square miles)” that has been affected by the quake.
Caritas’ eight-month project is seeking to provide as many as 200 families — many of them farming households in rural areas — with prefabricated container accommodation, as well as financial and technical assistance so they can repair damaged homes and rebuild.
“Helped by the international community,” Pope Francis said, “I hope that the country’s leaders might be able to quickly alleviate the suffering of the dear population.”
“Many of those affected in rural areas want to stay near their crops and livestock so they are sleeping in barns, in their cars and in the ruins of their homes. Caritas Croatia will help them as they rebuild their homes and communities so they can live in safe and dignified conditions,” Borko said.
Borko has estimated that 9 in 10 houses in villages between Petrinja and Glina have been damaged — and with aftershocks continuing, the extent and degree of damage needs to be reassessed each time the ground shakes.
Pope Francis has offered prayers and called for international solidarity.
“I express my closeness to the wounded and to those who have been affected by the quake,” Pope Francis said during the weekly General Audience on 30 December 2020 — the day after the quake — adding that he is praying “in particular for those who have lost their lives and for their families.”
As the Catholic Herald reported, Pope Francis also appealed for Croatian and international leaders to work together to address the emergency.
“Helped by the international community,” Pope Francis said, “I hope that the country’s leaders might be able to quickly alleviate the suffering of the dear population.”
The Apostolic Nuncio to Croatia, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, visited the hard-hit Diocese of Sisak, and toured the distribution centre of the diocesan Caritas in the company of Sisak’s Bishop Vlado Košic and meeting with Caritas volunteers. Vatican News quoted Archbishop Lingua as saying the volunteers’ commitment was “a sign of hope that helps us understand that at the root of man ‘is always the good’.”
Bishop Košic’s cathedral was also badly damaged.
He thanked the Holy See for for the prayerful support received, and said he is grateful of the spiritual and material help that is coming from around the world in the wake of Pope Francis’s appeal. “I agree with the nuncio,” Bishop Košic said, “that this event teaches us how fragile we are and how we should work for a better world.”
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