The search for missing persons in the strong earthquake in Durrës ended today after 15:XNUMX on the coast of the port city, where rescue teams from Montenegro and Serbia found that there is no lifeless body under the ruins of the "Mia mare" hotel.
This ended the four-day drama in Durrës and the town of Tumane, where, according to Albanian authorities, 49 people were killed, and over 650 were lightly or seriously injured.
Although a large number of people died in the landslide, "Vijesti" reporters in Durres did not find many collapsed buildings or houses, and life in that coastal city on the Adriatic yesterday seemed completely normal.
The only place where the rescue teams searched was the "Mio mare" hotel, where 18 rescuers from Montenegro and their colleagues from Serbia searched for the bodies of the victims for more than two days.
On Thursday, the body of a woman was pulled from the ruins of the hotel, and today there were suspicions that there was another victim under the pile of concrete and iron, but around 14 pm it was clear that it was not another victim, but the remains of the dismembered body of the woman pulled out yesterday.
"Since Wednesday, the Montenegrin team has been at this location of the former hotel "Mia mare", where we are working together with the team from Croatia and Serbia, clearing the ground in search of victims. As the task ahead of us is complex, teams of search dogs from France and Switzerland also helped us in our work," said the leader of the Montenegrin rescue team, Radomir Šćepanović.
"News" arrived in Durres around 11:XNUMX a.m., where in the ruins of that hotel, teams of sniffer dogs sniffed the area to determine if there might be another body under the concrete and rubble.
Around 12.30:XNUMX p.m., it was heard from the top of the ruins that the dogs had smelled something suspicious, after which the teams from Montenegro and Serbia started digging.
Half an hour later, they came across a woman's hand, so the rescuers thought they had found a new body, but a little later they realized that it was part of the torn corpse of a woman, who was pulled from the ruins the day before.
Part of the body was transferred to a plastic bag, and the rescuers searched for another two working hours to see if another body might have been trapped in the ruins of that hotel, in the middle of the boulevard along the Adriatic coast.
"News" in Durrës, except for the section of the boulevard along the coast, did not notice that several houses or buildings were demolished in that port city, which has close to 200.000 inhabitants.
On the boulevard along the coast, the foundation of the "Plaza" hotel was demolished, but what is strange is that some houses and buildings that are 100 years old were not demolished in the same stretch, but only some buildings that arose during the tourist boom in the last 20 years.
"News" in the Albanian part of the Adriatic did not find the families, who were left without their members, because most of the funerals had already been completed during the week.
Tents were erected around the city stadium in the center of Durrës for three days, where people evicted from destroyed houses were housed, but the authorities removed most of those tents during the day yesterday, and transferred the people to hotels in Albania.
Across the street from the stadium, hundreds of people in front of the gates of the Gymnasium, spent hours trying to reach the members of the Albanian Red Cross and the local authorities, asking for help to be distributed to them as soon as possible.
Food, clothes and water were unloaded in the school grounds, but the distribution did not start until 16 pm, while the team from Podgorica was in Durres.
According to the authorities, there are 1260 people living in the vicinity of that port city, of which 625 are in hotels and 360 in school halls. The others went to their relatives. In the most affected town of Tumane, which is 30 kilometers away from Dralč, 500 people were out of their homes, so the government transferred them to nearby hotels.
The Albanian authorities announced that 701 houses were damaged in Durrës, 12 were destroyed, and 176 buildings were damaged. Prime Minister Edi Rama said that the first teams of technical inspectors are coming to analyze the damage together with Albanian experts.
During the day, families buried six members of the Cara family in Tuman, who lost their lives in the earthquake. That family is also the most tragic story of this 6,4 Richter earthquake in Albania, because 26-year-old Almiri, Erisa (25), Hasan (18), Fatmir (53), Sadajana (23) and Anti (72) lost their lives. .
The main city boulevard in Durrës was flying with Albanian flags, lowered to half mast due to the day of mourning.
Rama stated that five million euros and one and a half million dollars were collected during the day for the rehabilitation of the consequences of the earthquake. Rama said that the amount of funds collected is quite encouraging, but considering that the banks are closed, it is not possible to say what the balance is. "1260 people are accommodated in the Durrës district, of which 625 are in hotels and 360 in school gymnasiums. They stayed in tents or with relatives. In Tuman, the transfer of around 500 people housed in tents, from camps to hotels in Schengen, has begun," said Rama.
According to him, 3480 people are homeless in the district of Tirana, while 250 people remain homeless in Berat.
In Tirana, 15 were destroyed, 239 were damaged, eight buildings are not in use.
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