Sharjah24 – AFP: "Winter shows its teeth," sighs 75-year-old Bara Vrbanac as she slowly climbs into the snow-covered camping trailer where she is living after her house in central Croatia was badly damaged in an earthquake last month.
She is among hundreds of families who have squeezed into vans, containers and other shelters after their homes were made unsafe by the quake that killed seven people.
Winter is already tough in Croatia's interior, one of the country's poorest parts, which still bears scars from the 1990s independence war.
In Sisak county, where the quake struck, unemployment is nearly double the national level.
Like many in the region, Vrbanac, who lives in the small village of Sibic, is still on edge due to aftershocks that keep rattling homes, weeks after the December 29 earthquake that cracked open buildings, schools and farm structures.
But she does not want to leave her land and farm animals, which include six sheep, two goats, cats and a dog.
"I'm constantly scared," said the elderly woman, who uses a wooden cane.
During the day, she occasionally enters her cracked, red-brick house, but she sleeps in the tiny, donated camping trailer, covered with a plastic blue tarp to protect it from the snow.
Inside, she has an electric heater tucked next to the bed.
"Unfortunately I've been through many things -- war, surgeries -- but this is the worst yet," she said.
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