New 2020 year at the hotel: Men and women return to see the ruins of the house left by the earthquake in Durres

The breeze, the wind blows cold, but a hot coffee and tea coupled with the greatest questions life has offered them this time has become the newest routine ever to be created away from home. For the first time, from the moment they left a crane in the morning of November 26, they return to see what is left of the palace where they spent a lifetime.

Kostadin Allkanyari, former resident of the 1032 palace (showing where his apartment was located)

A life full of memories, challenges, joys, and constant disappointments in one minute alone. Everything's left of the 1032 palace in Durres 6's district, or at “Two turkeys -- ”, where two women lost their lives, disappeared. They're looking for what's left of them not to find anything familiar. But no. Fadroma's got everything down. There is only one area of ruins surrounded by netting, so mates cannot contain tears.

Constantine: I feel terrible. That was our life. It's all over for me. Only if the State gives up. I have nowhere to go.

Natasha: - I feel terrible. No clothes, nothing. They're all gone. We should have gone.

What bothers them is tomorrow. They are in total darkness, while they do not know whether the biggest disaster that struck them was natural or human crime, greedy to gain space for the establishment, cut down the columns, and overloaded the roof with 6 deposits other than those of residents.

We don't know anything. Nobody told us anything. Thank you for coming.

Even incoming rulers tell us nothing or give us any hope.

They say they don't build here anymore, but we've lived here. It's our life here, and it seems fair, so I beg the government to build the palace here. In hotels we've been told we're here for a while, but not for long. We don't even have a crash.

The new year 2020 finds Constantine without hope.

There is no hope for me.

More than the power of the earthquake, there was intervention outside any standard allowed on the first floor for building the Baron's bar and the heavy weight of deposits positioned on the stairs that determined the fate of the 1032 palace

It was wrong for those who gave permission. It wasn't a little bar. The entire palace underneath empty and without side walls to maintain its balance. The palace never fell unless it interfered on the first floor. We put the deposits on the stairs and all the water flowed, so we told them to put them there. This place alone placed six deposits. If it were not for all these deposits, the palace would not collapse if their weight broke the roof. He fell down the stairs and ended up diving down the palace.

The earthquake that struck Durres, the very day it was prepared to celebrate the 107th anniversary of the flag-building, exposed major and popular urban problems, which citizens have often raised but authorities have not heard. So in this new year, everyone is hoping in the rapid reconstruction of Durres and in responsible implementation of the legislation in force, to stop the fatiness of the “kap what to catch” and live in harmony within urban standards, respecting construction in an area of high seismic activity.