By Aleksandar Vasovic
NOVI SAD, Serbia (Reuters) -Rescue workers scoured piles of concrete and twisted metal for survivors on Friday after a roof collapsed at the entrance of a railway station in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, killing 14 people.
Cranes and bulldozers helped sift through the wreckage alongside dozens of rescuers and construction workers, while medical staff and ambulances waited nearby.
The collapse of a 35-metre (115-foot) length of roofing occurred at noon (1100 GMT) on a sunny day in the city about 70 km (40 miles) northwest of the capital, Belgrade.
Bodies were pulled from the rubble throughout the afternoon and into evening.
“Our windows were open as it was warm outside and I heard a huge rumble and saw a plume of dust, that’s all I saw. Later I heard what happened,” said Vera, an 86-year-old pensioner who lives about 200 meters (yards) away.
Earlier in the afternoon rescuers freed two women who had been trapped under the rubble. They were in critical condition, said Vesna Turkulov, the head of the Vojvodina medical centre where they were taken.
The search and rescue operation was complicated by the sheer weight of the concrete and was expected to continue through the night, said Luka Causic who heads the interior ministry’s centre for emergency management.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told Tanjug news agency earlier he did not expect the death toll to rise significantly.
Five of those killed have not yet been identified, said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, promising justice.
“It is difficult to say anything meaningful,” he said in a televised address. “As the president of Serbia I demand that all those who are responsible for this are … punished.”
As the night fell, hundreds of people lit and laid candles outside the Novi Sad city hall to honour the victims of the disaster, some of them in tears.
“What’s there to say? I have worked at that railroad, I know it. This is terrible,” said Dragan Vujicic, a 70-year old pensioner.
Train departures have been halted from the station, according to N1 news channel which reported that a building reconstruction had been completed this summer, but that the part of the roof that collapsed had not been included in the project.
“This is a black Friday for all of Serbia and Novi Sad,” Prime Minister Milos Vucevic told reporters. “Regardless of the fact that this building was constructed in 1964, we will insist that those responsible for this tragedy are identified.”
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Ivana Sekularac; Writing by Ivana Sekularac and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Edward McAllister, Mark Potter, Helen Popper and Sandra Maler)
