“Hungary is providing assistance to Albania towards the elimination of the damage caused by the recent major earthquake”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on London on Tuesday.

Mr. Szijjártó, who was in the British capital attending a high-level meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of NATO, told Hungarian public media: “Following the natural disaster, the Albanian government and the Catholic Archbishopric of Tirana both requested assistance from the Hungarian government”.

He added that he had personally spoken with the Albanian Foreign Minister, and talks had also been held with the Archbishopric of Tirana. “There is no suitable technical and static engineering capacity in Albania to enable the assessment of which damaged buildings can be reconstructed, and for this reason the Albanian government has asked the Hungarian government to send experts who are able to help with the static evaluation”, the Minister said, adding “Six Hungarian static engineers travelled to Albania on Tuesday”.

“70 static engineers are working on assessing the damage in Albania, including 50 foreign ones, who have now been joined by the six Hungarian experts”, he added. According to Mr. Szijjártó, the Roman Catholic Church informed the government that five of the churches that belong to the Archbishopric of Tirana were heavily damaged in the earthquake. “Hungary is providing 85 million forints (EUR 260,000) in funding towards the restoration of these churches”, he added.

(MTI)