Fourteen people, including a six-year-old boy, lost their lives and around 30 were injured when the concrete structure in front of the railway station collapsed in Novi Sad shortly before 12 o’clock on Friday, according to the Nova from a Serbian portal article. The authorities sent several rescue and firefighting units to the scene, and several hearses appeared at the train station. Around 3 p.m., two people were found trapped under the rubble. One of them is a 14-year-old girl, who was lifted from under the debris around 4 p.m. The ambulance took him away on a stretcher, the same way, he writes a Blic – as well as the woman who was also found alive around 5:30.
According to Veszna Turkulov, director of the Vojvodina Regional Clinical Center, three of the injured were hospitalized in a critical condition after the tragedy. Ambulance Zoran Krulj after 8 o’clock in the evening he stateda 21- and a 23-year-old girl, and an 18-year-old boy, whose leg had to be amputated.
So far, seven of the 14 victims, two women and five men, have been identified. According to their monogram and year of birth, they are AR (2004) and A.Ć.S. (1989), and HS (1997), MM (2003), Š.Đ. (1947), RV (1955) and SV (1979).
The research was completed around 10:00 p.m. The balance is 14 dead and three wounded, announced the Minister of the Interior Ivica Dačić.
Here is a surveillance camera recording of the moments surrounding the collapse:
Before the tragedy, many people were waiting for a train or for someone to pick them up on the benches under the concrete structure. According to eyewitnesses, the sound of the crash sounded like something had been blown up. – Our phone is constantly ringing, parents are asking about their children, but we can’t tell anyone anything until we have definitive, reliable information. This has never happened before, it is a huge tragedy and disaster. All our rescue units are in the field – Szabad Magyar szó quotes one of Nova’s sources. City mayor Milan Đurić and Ivica Dačić immediately rushed to the train station, and the head of state Aleksandar Vučić also went. Prime Minister Miloš Vučević expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims and promised that those responsible for the tragedy would be found.
Aleksandar Vučić also made a similar statement before 9:30 in the evening, who indicated that he was looking for political and criminal responsibles after the tragedy. According to his statement, one of the 14 dead was not a Serbian, but a North Macedonian citizen.
The chief prosecutor’s office announced the 14 dead. Previously, there were reports of 1, then 8, 11, 12 and 13 fatalities.
On Saturday, a day of mourning will be held in Serbia in memory of the victims, three days of mourning have been announced in Novi Sad. At the request of the authorities, many people in Belgrade and Novi Sad came to donate blood to those who needed it after the tragedy. The victims were commemorated with candlelight vigils in both cities.
Nova reminds us that the building of the railway station in Novi Sad was built by a consortium led by the Chinese state company China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), CRIC-CCCC renewed it. Work began in October 2021, the railway station was finally built in the campaign before the parliamentary elections on April 3, 2022, the high-speed railway connecting Belgrade and Novi Sad at handover On March 19, 2022, Viktor Orbán and Aleksandar Vučić also appeared. The two politicians traveled the distance from Belgrade to Újvidék in half an hour that day on the express train called Soko, meaning Eagle. The train station in Novi Sad itself has been handed over several times – most recently on July 5, 2024 – for one reason or another.
Neither the Serbian Ministry of Construction and Transport nor the CCCC refused to answer questions about how much the renovation of the Novi Sad railway station cost. Six years ago, the Strabag–CCCC 2018 consortium applied for the renovation of the Hungarian section of the Budapest–Belgrade railway line, the Budapest–Kelebia railway line.
CCCC is publicly traded but majority state-owned and is the largest infrastructure development company in the People’s Republic of China.
As for the responsibility, the Minister of Construction and Transport Goran Vesić ran a little ahead, claiming that the concrete structure in front of the train station in Novi Sad was not touched in any of the recent renovations, and this building permit can attest to that. To the journalist’s question as to why scaffolding was erected around the concrete structure, he answered: – You can see that it has not been renovated. Later on CRIC-CCCC Consortium also issued a statement, according to which the concrete structure was not renovated because it was “too integral” to the building. The Novi Sad railway station was built in 1965.
The Serbian Supreme Prosecutor’s Office has indicated that it will do everything possible to uncover the circumstances that led to the collapse of the concrete structure.
On the Hungarian side, Viktor Orbán, Péter Szijjártó and Tamás Sulyok also expressed their condolences to Serbia due to the tragedy in Novi Sad. The Prime Minister delivered a message in English on XPéter Szijjártó one In a Facebook post he wrote, in a telegram he assured his colleague Marko Đurić, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, of the sympathy of the Hungarian people, after speaking on the phone with Bálint Pásztor, the president of the Hungarian Association of Vojvodina, and the president of the republic indicatedprays for the speedy recovery of the wounded.
Source: nepszava.hu
