It is hard to believe that the city authorities of Karlovac, led by Mayor Damir Jelić and his deputy Marina Kolaković, could have anticipated that less than a month after marking the ‘first birthday’ of their major project Kaquarium, a freshwater aquarium and river museum, its base part buried in the ground would experience a true ‘water baptism’.
This is not a test of impermeability or similar technical procedures, but the swollen Korana has found an underground path and, aided by abundant rainfall, has flooded this future tourist wonder of Karlovac. It is worth mentioning that it has a contracted pre-estimated value of 36,691,939.28 kuna, of which as much as 98.7 percent is co-financed by non-repayable funds from the EU Regional Development Fund. However, for Mayor Jelić, the flooding of the construction site of the facility, which its advocates insist is being built in the right place right next to the Korana and that it will withstand a water level of 844 cm, almost seems like a desirable and inevitable phase of construction. Almost like in a documentary about the construction of the Jablanica Hydroelectric Power Plant during the raw socialism era.
