The head of Croatia's Catholic Church has urged citizens not to lose heart after a Sunday morning earthquake inflicted severe damage and left at least one person dead in Zagreb, a city already struggling to control the Covid-19 pandemic.
"The Pope has invited us to be especially close to Mary, as we pray for the sick and a halt to the coronavirus – and in Zagreb we must now also pray for all those affected by the earthquake", said Cardinal Josip Bozanic.
"We do not know what God's plan is, nor the paths and signs he is leading us along. But humanity matters most – human life matters most." I
In the message, published this week, Cardinal Bozanic said he had been forced to move out his badly damaged episcopal residence after the quake, measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, which was centred four miles north of the city-centre.
He added that Church leaders were still awaiting expert assessments of the full impact, but said the southern tower had been badly damaged on Zagreb's gothic Assumption Cathedral, which was now surrounded by "rocks and material".
Croatia's premier, Andrej Plenkovic, said the earthquake, which left dozens injured, had been the worst for 140 years, adding that army units would remain in the capital to clear rubble.
Besides the cathedral and adjoining episcopal palace, the tremor, in two separate waves, brought down the ceiling of Zagreb's Sacred Heart basilica and damaged other historic landmarks, including the city's Franciscan church.
The Pope expressed "closeness and solidarity" in a Sunday Angelus message with inhabitants of Zagreb, whose cathedral was also partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1880, and has undergone complex restoration since the end of communist rule three decades ago.