As Zagreb Quake Anniversary Passes, Croatia’s Anger Grows

Exactly a year after the Croatian capital Zagreb awoke to scenes of chaos from a 5.5-magnitude earthquake, reconstruction has not even started despite a post-earthquake reconstruction law that came into force last September,

Many citizens are angry as well as desperate. "We got a bunch of promises [and] a law we've been awaiting for six months. From then until today, we're still trying to deal with its [law's] extensiveness and complexity," Vesna Blaskovic, from the recently founded association SOS Zagreb, told BIRN.

SOS Zagreb is demanding speed, fairness, transparency and less bureaucracy in post-quake reconstruction work.

Blaskovic has insight into the situation because shortly after the quake hit she started a Facebook group, "Earthquake in Zagreb", which currently has more than 13,000 members.

"One year after the earthquake, we do not have a single multi-apartment building or family house in the city of Zagreb where reconstruction has begun based on the reconstruction law," Blaskovic noted.

She says some people have started to renovate their buildings on their own, and are not sure whether the money they spend will ever be returned to them.

A total of 25,000 buildings were damaged in the quake and more than 6,000 were rendered unusable, completely or temporarily. Almost all the damaged buildings, 98.5 per cent, were privately owned.

"Of those 6,000, only 185 buildings and family buildings in Zagreb have applied for structural renovation," Blaskovic stated.

According to her, this low figure "speaks of how complicated the law is, how difficult it is for people to cope with it, and how much not only the state but all the institutions have failed".

Blaskovic says the Construction Ministry seems to be...