The federal government was innocent, Infrastructure Minister Goran Vesic has nonetheless insisted
Goran Vesic, Serbia’s minister of transportation, building and infrastructure, has resigned over final week’s tragedy in Novi Unhappy, when 14 individuals died after a railway station cover all of the sudden collapsed.
The concrete cover was a part of the unique 1964 design, however the station had been renovated not too long ago as a part of a undertaking to construct high-speed rail to the Hungarian border. The Chinese language contractor stated it had not executed any work on the cover, nevertheless.
Vesic instructed reporters in Belgrade on Monday that he supplied his resignation to President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday, instantly after the tragedy, however didn’t need to make any bulletins throughout the three-day mourning interval.
“I’ll formally tender my resignation to the president tomorrow,” Vesic stated.
He insisted, nevertheless, that neither he nor his division bore any blame for the collapse, as a result of that they had no approach to management or monitor the standard of the development work.
“I name on the authorities, most of all of the prosecutors, to ascertain as quickly as potential who’s chargeable for this horrible accident and who among the many planners, contractors, supervisors and buyers induced the deaths of 14 harmless individuals,” Vesic instructed reporters.
A Chinese language consortium was contracted to do the work, two international corporations have been chargeable for the supervision, whereas the infrastructure department of Serbian Railways was the principal investor, he defined. The contract for rebuilding the railway station in Serbia’s second-largest metropolis was signed in 2018 but it surely took till 2021 to safe a building allow. Vesic was appointed to his present put up in October 2022.
In line with the minister, the cover was not included within the scope of the undertaking. In line with native authorities and a few opposition politicians, somebody ended up constructing a glass and metal cowl which will have overloaded the Nineteen Sixties construction, which was hung off the station roof by a collection of metal cables.
The cables snapped on Friday, simply earlier than midday, crushing the 17 individuals who have been sitting or strolling under. Three individuals survived and are nonetheless in hospital in crucial situation. There have been youngsters among the many lifeless.
Professional-western opposition activists cited the Novi Unhappy tragedy to demand the resignation of the complete Progressive authorities, and new elections.
In his resignation speech, Vesic condemned “those that attempt to use any tragedy, who assume that each loss of life is their likelihood to get into energy.”
The Novi Unhappy station was in-built 1964. The modernist undertaking was the work of architect Imre Farkash, and was accomplished forward of schedule and below price range. It had fallen into disrepair after the breakup of Yugoslavia within the Nineteen Nineties and the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, which destroyed the railway and street bridges throughout the Danube in Novi Unhappy. Its reconstruction was a part of the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed rail undertaking that Vucic and his authorities promoted as a significant achievement.
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