Zagreb Earthquake: The Slowest Reconstruction in Croatia and Beyond

On Sunday March 22, 2020, at 6:24 AM, a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale woke the residents of Zagreb. It was the strongest blow to Zagreb since the Great Earthquake on November 9, 1880, which had a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale.

Damage of 13.3 billion euros

The earthquake caused the most damage in the city center, particularly affecting old buildings that were not constructed according to earthquake-resistant criteria. A 15-year-old girl was killed (when a wall fell on her in an apartment on Đorđićeva Street), and 27 people were injured.

Damage was reported on 26,500 properties – ranging from minor cracks to serious structural problems. A red sticker, which indicated uninhabitability, was placed on 2,658 properties, forcing around 5,000 residents to leave their homes. The World Bank and the Government estimated the material damage at around 13.3 billion euros.

An even stronger earthquake in Banija

Before the reconstruction of Zagreb had even properly begun, Banija was struck on December 29, 2020 by an even stronger earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale. It brought even more catastrophic consequences. Eight people were killed. More than 40,000 houses and buildings were damaged. Approximately 20,000 people had to leave their homes. The damage was estimated at around five billion euros. In total, the damage from the two earthquakes was estimated to exceed the state budget – over 20 billion euros.

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For comparison, the earthquake 140 years ago caused damage just slightly less than the entire annual budget of the then Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia.

Quick clearing and sloppy reconstruction

Even after the 2020 earthquake, in both cases, quick organization of clearing and accommodation for people who lost their roofs over their heads was arranged. The state took over the responsibility for remediation. As early as January, the resettlement into container settlements in Petrinja, Glina, and Sisak began, which grew to about 5,000 residents.

In the meantime, everything became complicated, from notoriously slow bureaucracy to objective ownership issues. The reconstruction quickly slowed down, and temporary container accommodation turned into a multi-year situation. At the end of October 2020, a reconstruction fund was established, but it became entangled in slow procedures and turned into a political battleground. Meanwhile, there was turmoil in the relevant Ministry of Construction.

Forced administrator of the Ministry of Construction

Darko Horvat was arrested in February 2022 while in office. He was replaced by Ivan Paladina, the former head of the IGH Institute, who had been more involved in lucrative real estate and investment projects and was dismissed in January 2023 under suspicion of conflict of interest – due to the slow reconstruction. During this time, 5,000 people lived their third winter in temporary containers.

The new Minister of Construction, Branko Bačić, effectively took on the role of a kind of forced administrator of the reconstruction. He had two key tasks. The first was to utilize all the money from the EU Solidarity Fund, about one billion euros, which was supposed to be spent by June 2022, but the deadline was extended by another year. He succeeded in this.

Emptied containers, but…

He also succeeded in his second task: he emptied all the containers before the fourth winter. However, not all victims were moved into permanent housing, but rather into another temporary accommodation. This coincided with the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2024. The container settlements were not only an indicator of state incompetence but also a significant source of collective dissatisfaction with the government, which, with each television report, undermined party ratings and the number of parliamentary mandates.

Differences between 1880 and 2020

For this reason, it is interesting to look at how Zagreb reacted in the past. Art historian Dragan Damjanović wrote in the magazine Prostor that in 1880, within just a month of the earthquake, the necessary reconstruction of almost all public buildings was completed, allowing all schools, institutes, and other public institutions to begin operating. A large part of residential buildings was sufficiently repaired to be used for habitation. Only major works on the reconstruction of churches followed, some of which would be completed as early as 1881 (on St. Catherine’s Church), while on certain buildings, it would take several decades (on the cathedral, Franciscan church).

It is better not to compare these figures with the current ones. Scaffolding is still present in the center of Zagreb. The authorities boast that the complete reconstruction will be finished – by 2030. This period of as much as ten years is actually an illustration of the changes in Croatian politics from the end of the 19th century to today.