The Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology Skopje (IZIIS) on the recommendation of the Steering Committee on crisis management, today visited schools and kindergartens to see the damage and possible consequences after a series of earthquakes struck Skopje in the last two days. We discovered, that they visited several facilities, and in some schools, some parts of the premises are now off limits.
At tonight’s Steering Committee meeting, they are scheduled to discuss the situation in schools and kindergartens after a series of earthquakes, and the panic that they created among the public.
Vasko Lazarevski, Director of the Skopje school “October 11”, sais that representatives from IZIIS were at the school and have declared two classrooms off limits.
“Today representatives from the Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology reviewed and inspected classrooms. They realized in two classrooms, that after the earthquake, it may be dangerous for teaching, so now they have been declared off limits to students and teachers. They informed us that they will submit their findings to the Municipality of Center and that the classrooms will need to be renovated. Now we have a problem at the school, because after the floods, the State Sanitary Inspectorate also put two other classrooms off limits”, Lazarevski said.
He also said that students will have to attend classes in two shifts because there are not enough rooms.
Also, we have discovered that all extracurricular activities in Skopje have been canceled. Among them are various sports activities, dance groups, foreign languages lessons …
After yesterday’s earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3, which scared the citizens of Skopje, a special telephone line (195) has been opened, where all citizens can request an assessment to see whether their buildings are safe for living.
According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), yesterday in Skopje and the surrounding areas, they measured nine aftershocks. The strongest was 15:10 pm, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale.
The first quake struck at 6:58am with a magnitude of 4.2 on the Richter scale, and the next at 7:00am with a magnitude of 2.8 on the Richter scale.
