MAJSKE POLJANE NEAR THE CLAY NO LONGER EXISTS: In a Serbian village affected by the earthquake: houses demolished, people in cars, horses and cattle roam the fields.

Houses have been demolished, there is no electricity, people have spent the night between Tuesday and Wednesday either in the open air or in cars and trucks, there are no more stables for animals, horses and cattle roaming the fields. Five locals died under the rubble, two Serbs, 19-year-old Darko Kozic, and an elderly Dusan Bulat, Roma Mile Jurkovic, and two Bosnia-Herzegovina Croats, father and son, Franjo and Mario Tomic, who lived in an abandoned Serbian house . A thirteen-year-old girl from a mixed Serbo-Croatian marriage, Laura Cvijić, and a church organist from Žažina, Stanko Zec, died in Petrinja.

Apocalyptic images welcomed us in a town where 196 inhabitants lived before the Banja earthquake. Many Serbs left Majske Poljane in the 1990s and the rest lived modestly in a town that does not even have street lights. Most of the locals spent the night in the open air, the elderly sat on the ruins of the houses, moved and thus greeted the morning by the fire. A local man immediately shows us an old truck in which his son spent the night wrapped in a blanket. An older woman says she has nothing left, no souvenirs, no clothes, and that she only has a modest pension of 150 euros.

– I only have two brothers, one in Sisak, the other in Serbia – he tells us.

The country house where you were in the store and the post office was razed, only a brick was left on a brick. There is literally no house that has not been destroyed and some have been completely demolished. Balconies fell, windows fell, walls cracked, chimneys collapsed. A series of earthquakes on Wednesday morning, with a magnitude of up to 4.9 on the Richter scale, caused additional damage, so that almost no one will be able to stay in their homes.

They all tell us: “It was a night of horror and horror”, and in the morning, the locals were greeted by new earthquakes.

– There is no fear anymore, because everything has been ruined anyway – says an old man who introduces himself as Mile, while desperately trying to find the lost cattle. He is helped by young people who came from all over Croatia as volunteers, so Darko Radić from Sesvete explains that they helped all night.

– We gave people blankets to cover themselves and some food, while bulldozers demolished their damaged houses. We admire the courage of the locals of Majske Poljane, who stoically endured all these hardships, near the ruins where life is no longer possible – says Darko for “Novosti”.

The image where a dog is standing in front of the collapsed house in which he lived before the earthquake is also shocking, and now everyone who passes is led to the place where the front door was.

– There is nothing left of our house, but it is important that we are alive. I don’t know what we will do next: they tell us about the Radović family and they show us a newer house that was also demolished and in which father and son, Franjo and Mario Tomić, who worked in the police, died. – Well, she didn’t last either, and the most important thing for us now is to save the cattle, because that’s what we live on. If we lose it too, we will literally have nothing left.

The tour of the village offers dramatic images, only a century-old wooden house remains intact. Everything else was demolished and the army pitched tents in the courtyards. Dogs, cows, pigs roam the fields and people on tractors drive what little remains of the houses they managed to take.

– I managed to save my ninety-year-old mother, I took her out of the house at the last minute. God forbid this happens to anyone – says Miloš Lončar.

At every step we hear dramatic testimonies in a town that no longer exists. Predrag Matić MEP was in Majska Poljana at the very moment of the strongest blow, when the chimneys flew fifteen meters in the air.

– I will remember the forest that literally danced from left to right when the earthquake hit.

Glina’s Deputy Mayor, Branka Bakšić, tells us that she knows most of the villagers, who lead modest lives and that after the 1990s, when the town was completely destroyed, they barely managed to rebuild their houses.

– In an instant, people ran out of everything. Now, calls come in from all over Croatia to put people up in hotels, but they don’t want to leave their homes destroyed, says Branka Bakšić.

Janez Lenarčič, the Commissioner for Crisis Situations of the European Commission, who visited the villages of Banja, also promised help. Neighbors of Majske Poljane also learned that Serbia is sending a million-euro aid, while they wait for a score of containers to avoid having to sleep in cars the following night.

They were also visited by the President of Croatia, Zoran Milanović, who declared that an evil fate had befallen the locals.

– Majske Poljane has always been on the front line of suffering in Croatia, but she has risen and continued her life. And now follows a new beginning – said Milanović.

Words of support for this area also came from the Vatican, and Pope Francis expressed his support for all those who lost loved ones. Many countries have also announced aid, and more heated tents, folding beds and everything else that can help people has arrived in Zagreb.

The day after the strong earthquake, citizens across Croatia are sending aid, but the disorganization of the guard services is felt. If it weren’t for the volunteers, it would be difficult for the unfortunate people to get help, and the private owners of construction machines who offered help claim that no one is deploying them, many are returning.

Photo: J. Kerbler

Petrinja looks like a ghost, there are few people on the ruined streets, and so it is in Sisak. Five schools were completely destroyed, as well as the Sisak hospital. Many other places where Serbs live in Banija were also damaged.

The Croatian government has declared January 2 as a Day of Mourning.

USTASHLUK IN CLAY

“KILL A Serb,” ​​a group of youths yelled at Milorad Pupovac as he walked through the center of the destroyed Glina. They also shouted “Ready to go home”, and the Serbian leader in Croatia was “honored” with insults at “thieves” and “garbage collectors”. After the insults in various places, a dozen young people left in a car and a van with Split number plates.

– Those who come here to help, and then shout “Kill the Serb” or salute the Ustasha, do not understand what this country needs. They don’t know what they are doing, they are insulting those who came with the same job, to help the attacked part of the Croatian country – said Pupovac.

When asked by a journalist if he had been reprimanded for saying what nationalities the residents of Majske Poljane were from, Pupovac commented that in case the earthquake happened in Serbia, the people of Croatia would also be interested in whether a Croatian was killed. “I have never divided the victims by nationality.”