The aftershocks which keep rocking the Petrinja area are causing new damage, mainly sinkholes, and since they are close to family homes, some people could be evacuated to safe locations.

The head of the task force dealing with the aftermath of the December 29 earthquake, Veterans’ Minister Tomo Medved, told Croatian Radio on Tuesday that the number of sinkholes in Kukuruzari Municipality had increased from 40 last week to more than 70.

He said that due to the opening of sinkholes, the task force was given recommendations from the Zagreb Faculty of Mining, Geology, and Petroleum Engineering based on which the task force would today adopt conclusions to evaluate the situation and possibly evacuate the people in danger.

Medved said many of the sinkholes were in the immediate vicinity of family homes and that experts were monitoring and analysing their expansion on a daily basis. “But this is now a really big number, large expansion, and we are faced with the challenge of finding a solution… so that the lives of the people living here are not in any danger.”

Medved said filling up the sinkholes would have to wait because the ground was still shaking.

Additional housing containers to be set up

He went on to say that factory chimneys in Sisak which, due to the damage sustained in the tremors, posed a security threat, would be removed by authorised companies.

Medved underlined the importance of amending the law on post-earthquake reconstruction “so that we can deal with the damage even more intensively,” because the Civil Protection Act was currently being applied in the areas affected by the 29 December quake.

He announced that housing containers would be set up in the settlement in Petrinja on Wednesday and said container housing settlements were being built in Sisak, Glina and Majur. “Works are under way on several locations so that… people can live in the immediate vicinity of their homes which were damaged in the earthquake.”