NOVI SAD, Serbia (AP) — Serbian rescuers stopped searching for survivors on Saturday after pulling out 14 bodies from underneath tons of concrete from a fallen canopy at the entrance of a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad.
Serbia’s government declared Saturday a day of mourning as officials promised a thorough investigation into Friday's collapse of the roof that fell on people sitting below it. The dead included a 6-year-old girl and a citizen of North Macedonia while three people were seriously injured, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said.
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Rescue workers search for victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Workers inspect a train station after an outdoor roof collapsed o Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Police officers guard a train station after an outdoor roof collapsed on Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
An Orthodox icon and candles left at the site for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station on Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Doctors said the injured ranged from 18 to 24 years old and remained in life-threatening condition on Saturday.
The train station has been renovated twice in recent years, and critics of Serbia’s populist government attributed the disaster to corruption and sloppy renovations. Members of the opposition planned to protest in front of the station later on Saturday.
Officials have insisted that the canopy had not been part of the renovation work. Goran Vesic, the government minister for construction and infrastructure, told the state RTS television the tragedy would not have happened had the canopy been renovated as well.
Dacic said some 20 people will be questioned on Saturday as part of the investigation, including Vesic.
Authorities deployed heavy machinery and some 80 rescuers who struggled for hours to remove large parts of concrete that crashed just before noon Friday. The rescue effort lasted until late Friday evening.
Residents of Novi Sad lit candles and held a vigil for the victims at the site. Many responded to a call to donate blood.
”This morning I drank my coffee in tears. It is hard this has happened in our city,” said Dragica Camber, a resident of Novi Sad,
Surveillance camera footage on Friday showed people moving in and out of the building and sitting on benches on a bright, sunny day before the concrete canopy suddenly collapsed. Windows shook on nearby buildings.
The railway station, including the canopy, was built in 1964. The renovation work was carried out by Chinese companies.
The renovated station was inaugurated by President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, over two years ago as a major stopover for a planned fast train line between Belgrade and Budapest.
Rescue workers search for victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
People light candles for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Workers inspect a train station after an outdoor roof collapsed o Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Police officers guard a train station after an outdoor roof collapsed on Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
An Orthodox icon and candles left at the site for the victims after an outdoor roof collapsed at a train station on Friday, in Novi Sad, Serbia, Saturday, Nov. 2 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.
Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front," Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would be coming to the region to deter Iran and its militant allies.
The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Iran has launched two major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.
But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack faltered as satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country's ballistic missile program, as well as at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.
Iran's allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon's Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to back them militarily.
Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After Khamenei's speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, near an all-time low. It had been 32,000 rials to the dollar when Tehran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars news agency just before Khamenei's remarks were released. In it, he warned Iran's response "will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”
“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned. Israeli air force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the Oct. 26 attack.
Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing up would “return in coffins” horizontally.
Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting with school and university students, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting with school and university students, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd in a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)