Tragedy in Novi Sad: Railway station roof collapse kills 14

On November 1st in Novi Sad, a part of the railway station wall collapsed. As a result of the incident, a total of 14 people died, and several others were injured. Initially, it was reported that seven victims had been identified, and in the following hours, additional identities were confirmed. On Friday night, the rescue operation was halted.

As reported by Serbian Telegraph, among the victims were two small girls: 9-year-old Valentina and 6-year-old Sara. Along with them, their grandfather, 53-year-old Đorđe, died. The girls' aunt published an obituary on social media, announcing the girls' deaths and the funeral date of November 5th. The girls' father shared with the "Serbian Telegraph" how he learned about his children's deaths.

My wife called me and said that the part where they were waiting for the bus had collapsed. I called my father on his phone, but he didn't answer. Then I called my older daughter Valentina a hundred times, but she also didn't answer. We immediately drove to Novi Sad. They sent us from one hospital to another to find them, but we couldn’t, and they were already dead. We only found out at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time that they had died – you can imagine the uncertainty - described the man.

The authorities of Novi Sad announced a three-day mourning period in connection with the tragedy. People gather at the station where the tragedy occurred, lighting candles and laying flowers. The station was reopened this July after a major renovation carried out by the Chinese consortium CRIC&CCCC. Serbian State Railways announced on Friday that the collapsed part of the roof was not part of the recent reconstruction works. President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić stated that he "expects both criminal and political accountability" for all those responsible for causing the tragedy.