The fiftieth anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake that hit Banja Luka on October 27, 1969, leaving a completely devastated city behind, will be marked by a series of commemorative memorial events, Federal News Agency reports.
The commemoration of the anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake begins on October 23, with a multimedia setting about life in the “wounded city” during the fall and winter of the late seventh and early eighth decades of the last century.
The first part of the exhibition consists of an exhibition of 24 photographs and negatives, which were taken from November 1969 until mid-March 1970 by photo amateurs of Banja Luka Radivoj Radanović, Dr. Aleksandar Sjerikov and Ljubinko Bato Smoljanovic, while its second part is a projection of archival films about earthquake in Banja Luka, recorded by Ivica Kurtovic, Miodrag Sobot and Ljubinko Bato Smoljanovic.
The first earthquake hit the city in the night between October 26 and 27 at 2:55 am. However, the time stopped from Banja Luka at 8:53 am. The earthquake that took lives and destroyed the city measured six degrees on the Richter scale, covering the city in dust within seconds.
The earthquake devastated the city entirely. It took 15 lives and thousands of people were lightly or severely injured, while 86.000 apartments were destroyed. Major damage was caused on educational (266), cultural (146), health (133), social and public administration institutions (152).
The economy suffered heavy losses. All enterprises worked with significantly reduced capacities during the following period and some of them stopped the production completely.
After the earthquake, the authorities were forced to send elementary and high school students from Banja Luka to other parts of the former Yugoslavia to finish the academic year.
