Snow causes traffic problems in the national capital

Most of the country has seen heavy snow over the past two days, with Gorski Kotar, Lika, and the central and eastern continent hit hardest. However, no major traffic problems on highways have been reported. The same cannot be said for Zagreb where almost thirty centimeters of snow fell in the past 24 hours.

Many citizens of Zagreb have been critical of the handling of snow cleaning services over the past 24 hours, noting that the city’s winter services have fallen well short of the mark. However, the Head of the Winter Service of the City of Zagreb, Tomislav Hrastinski, responded that all of the available teams were out working overnight to clear the roads. He added however, that priority was given to major roads, and those that access hospitals and other vital infrastructure: "I can freely say that the situation yesterday was quite chaotic. At about 8PM things really didn't look that good, and with some twenty centimeters of snow forecast overnight, I have to admit that we were a little worried. Overnight we had 225 teams working on the roads, and right now we're at about eighty, and our focus right now is on roads that are considered second priority, meaning neighborhood roads."

However, opposition leaders in the Zagreb City Assembly, such as the head of the HDZ chapter in Zagreb, Ivan Matijević, called the city’s response a failure: "We've seen that for two days the roads weren't cleared of snow, which resulted in a complete collapse in traffic in some parts of the city. But what concerns me the most is that over the past two days we've seen trams jump their tracks, which happens when the tracks aren't cleared of ice and snow. As a result the safety of the citizens of Zagreb has been brought into question."

For pedestrians the biggest problem is snow-covered sidewalks, which has resulted in a spike in the number of injuries and visits to the Traumatology Clinic in Zagreb. Dr. Dragan Đurđević from the Traumatology Clinic at the Sisters of Mercy Clinical Hospital Center: "We've examined around 250 new patients, most with injuries to the lower leg or ankles, and hips with elderly. For the most part the injuries are a result of the recent snow. We have operating rooms working continuously, and roughly fifteen people have already been operated on as a result of falling on the snow and ice. Unfortunately, we expect even more patients, and as a result we have to cancel all so-called elective surgeries and focus our energies on treating these new injuries."

Source: HRT