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According to the report of the Serbian public service television (RTS), a large number of ambulances and fire engines arrived on the scene, and work machines were ordered to the railway station after the roof structure of the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed. At least 14 people lost their lives in the accident, and around thirty were injured. According to the report of the local RTV correspondent in Vojvodina, a hearse is also at the scene, reports MTI.
The prosecutor of the High Prosecutor’s Office of Novi Sad arrived on the scene, and the Serbian Railway Infrastructure Company also issued a statement regarding the tragedy, which claims that the ruined part of the railway station was not the subject of the renovation works carried out in the framework of the construction of the high-speed railway between Novi Sad and Subotica.
A national day of mourning was declared
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vuccevics also arrived at the scene and announced in a circle of journalists that those responsible for the tragedy will be found at all costs.
This is one of the most difficult days in Novi Sad’s post-war history. A terrible tragedy. I express my condolences to the relatives of the victims and thank everyone who helps and fights to save people and fights superhumanly for all lives
said Vucsevich.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacsics informed the journalists that at least 80 people are involved in the rescue work. “It is an extremely difficult operation that takes several hours. Eight bodies were lifted from the ruins,” he said. He said that two people are already being treated in the hospital, one of them had both legs amputated, and his condition is serious.
We got in touch with two people who are under the ruins
– he added, one of them is 14 years old. THE nova.rs according to his statement, at four o’clock in the afternoon, a person was pulled out from under the ruins, who was immediately taken to the hospital. According to some sources, it is a 14-year-old girl. A little later, at 4:40 p.m., according to the local press, another woman was rescued from the rubble and was immediately taken to a medical facility by ambulance.
Because of what happened, November 2 was declared a day of mourning in the country. However, three days of mourning were announced in Novi Sad from November 2.
A six-year-old child is among the victims
The director of the Vojvodina Clinical Center (where the injured were transported – ed.) said that the condition of three of the injured is very serious, two people are still in the operating room, with life-threatening injuries. The identities of the injured are not yet known, all that is known about them is that they are one man and two women, all three of them young.
Dacsics later announced that a six-year-old child was among the victims.
Gagics, the head of the administration dealing with emergency situations, cried when he saw that a six-year-old child had also died
said the Minister of the Interior.
The local prosecutor’s office announced on Friday evening that
14 people died in the accident,
they have so far managed to identify seven of them, of which two are women and five are men. The mayor of Újvidék, Milan Durics, announced that the costs of the burial of the victims will be covered by the city’s municipality.
Vucsics is looking for those responsible
In his televised address to the nation, the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucsic, demanded that those responsible be found as soon as possible.
The Serbian head of state thanked the rescue teams and doctors for their work, but placed the greatest emphasis on the perpetrators of the omissions. All said
he doesn’t want to talk about those who don’t want to talk about the tragedy because of their own interests, or who try to hide from responsibility by hiding behind power.
As the president of Serbia, he asked the Novi Sad prosecutor’s office and the Serbian government to investigate the criminal and political parties responsible for the case as soon as possible. He expressed his incomprehension as to why, if the entire building had been renovated in recent years, the canopy was left out.
Chinese reconstruction
Recently, due to the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest railway line, the railway station in Novi Sad was renovated several times, but the roof structure, which has now collapsed, has not been touched since 1965, only internal repairs were carried out there. The reconstructions were carried out by a Chinese company, the most recent renovation was handed over in July. In March 2022, Orbán Viktor Aleksandar Vucsic, the President of the Republic of Serbia, held a press conference at the site after one of the renovations.
According to Ana Oreg, a politician from the Free Citizens’ Movement party, the government must take responsibility for what happened. As he put it, “the greatest responsibility lies with those who conclude harmful and secret contracts”.
Regarding the accusations, the Serbian Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Goran Vesics, told the local media that during the reconstruction, the collapsed part was not touched, it did not undergo any transformation. He added that his claims can be verified with building permits.
Telegram to Belgrade
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also spoke about the case. As he wrote on his social media page:
I would like to express my deepest condolences to President Vucsic and the people of Serbia for the tragic collapse of the roof of the train station in Novi Sad. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims.
I would like to express my deepest condolences to President @avucic and the people of Serbia upon the tragic collapse of a roof at the train station in Novi Sad. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims!
— Viktor Orbán (@PM_ViktorOrban) November 1, 2024
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó reacted to the news on his social media page. As he wrote, “we were shocked to learn about the tragedy that occurred in the afternoon at the train station in Novi Sad, which, according to current information, claimed eight lives and injured around thirty people”.
Together with our Serbian friends, we mourn the victims, sympathize with those who lost their loved ones, and at the same time, we wish the injured a speedy recovery
he said. He added, “I assured my colleague Marko Duric, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, of the sympathy of the Hungarian people in a telegram, after speaking on the phone with Bálint Pásztor, the president of the Hungarian Association of Vojvodina.”
Also the President of the Republic Tamás Sulyok expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims and wished the injured a speedy recovery.
(Cover photo: The collapsed roof of the Novi Sad railway station on November 1, 2024. Photo: Nenad Mihajlovic / AFP)
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