After the Earthquake: More Questions than Answers in Croatia

"We expected something like this," Atalic told BIRN. "We were warning, asking, but it didn't work."

A number of schools, healthcare facilities and even the building of the Croatian parliament are damaged or out of use. The government has drafted a law to deal with the aftermath, but critics say it is full of holes. No one knows how long the reconstruction will take, how much it will cost or where the money will come from. And it all comes on top of COVID-19.

Atalic said Croatians should expect the recovery to take "a couple of years for sure."

Government's restoration plan criticised

General view of the damage in the streets following an earthquake in Zagreb. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANTONIO BAT.

Almost 29,000 people filed damage reports following the March 22 earthquake, the Ministry of Construction and Physical Planning told BIRN.

The ministry said inspections had been made of 6,305 buildings "so far" and that 1,160 had been left unusable and in need of "emergency measures".

Experts are working in the field, it said, "risking their health because of the current epidemic caused by the spread of the COVID-19 disease".

On March 31, the minister, Predrag Stromar, briefed architecture and urban planning professionals, the city authorities and other ministries on the government's draft restoration law.

"For privately-owned apartment blocks, better static should be provided to withstand stronger earthquakes than this recent one," the ministry told BIRN. It noted that among those damaged were a large number of protected buildings for which renovation works would have to be coordinated with the Ministry of Culture.

According to local media reports, citing the draft law, schools, hospitals,...