Four dead bodies were pulled out of the waters of the Gramsh lake Friday evening.
The tragedy cost the lives of a father and two of his sons, as well as the children’s cousin.
The victims were identified as Arben Zogu (46), Ruben Zogu (19), E. Zogu (14) and Melsi Zogu (20).
RENEA divers were at the scene and managed to retrieve the four dead bodies. Two motorcycles, clothes and three cellphones were found at the scene of the tragic event.
According to Arben’s father, the four had left the house at around 15:00 in the afternoon and had said they would only be out for an hour to take a swim in the lake. However, family members who contacted them by 17:00, could not reach them, leading to doubts about their wellbeing.
The head of the fire department in Gramsh provided further details on the tragedy, issuing a statement after the recovery of the drowned bodies.
He revealed that the victims did not know how to swim, and in an attempt to save each other, they had tragically drowned.
“The incident is very grave. A father, along with his two sons, came to swim and tried to rescue each other. The first one drowned, the second one went to help. None of the three knew how to swim, and the fourth one also didn’t know how to swim. They drowned while trying to help each other. Unfortunately, there were several holes here that were created during the construction of the [Banje] hydropower plant, and these holes are very deep. They didn’t know about these holes and fell directly into them,” said the head of the fire department.
When asked if there were informative signs about these holes at the lake, the head of the fire department said, “the lake is not meant for informative signs; the entire lake is deep, and it is known that people who do not know how to swim should not enter. We patrol it as a fire department, and we were there until late in the evening Thursday because we have a boat that continuously patrols, and we provide swimming lessons. Unfortunately, we couldn’t come on Friday, it went terribly wrong for them and their families.”
Residents in the area are shocked. Even though they are aware they cannot swim in these waters due to it being dangerous, they are even more concerned about the negligence of the authorities to take safety measures, which could have prevented the tragedy from happening.
“The lake is very dangerous, it is unprotected. There has been a scandal with the hydroelectric power station here. They built it and left it at that. There are no guards or fences. They should have made sieges. If you don’t know the area, you fall and you drown,” say the local residents.
Work on the hydropower plant began in June 2013 and began to produce energy on September 23, 2016.
At least 2,000 workers were involved in its construction, according to Statkraft, the Norwegian company that oversaw the project.
