BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Dijana Hrka's world fell apart on Nov. 1 last year, when tons of concrete crushed her son to death at a train station in Serbia. The partial building collapse killed 16 people and has sparked countrywide anti-government protests.
The 47-year-old Hrka has become the rare family member of those killed to speak out. She has appeared at protests to the applause of thousands of mostly young people who accuse autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic 's government of corruption in construction and other matters.
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FILE - People march during a protest following collapse of a concrete canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, in Belgrade, Serbia, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
FILE - Students march on New Years Eve during a protest that erupted after a concrete canopy fell two months ago, in Belgrade, Serbia, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
She will join tens of thousands of protesters again on Saturday for the anniversary of the canopy collapse in Serbia's northern city of Novi Sad. Their movement has rattled Vucic’s firm rule. Authorities have failed to curb the discontent.
Hrka seeks accountability for her son and the others killed, but also for the scores of people who have been detained or lost their jobs in a government crackdown on the protests.
Authorities “have been arresting innocent children ... but no one has been held responsible for the deaths of 16 people under the canopy," a tearful Hrka told The Associated Press.
“I would like them to come and look me in the eyes,” she said. “I would ask them: Where is justice?”
Her son, 27-year-old Stefan, had come to the railway station to pick up someone, she recalled. It was a sunny day, so he apparently decided to wait outside. He and 15 others, including children, stood no chance when the station's canopy collapsed and buried them. Another woman survived with severe injuries.
“It will forever be the worst day of my life,” Hrka said.
The anniversary protest on Nov. 1 aims to pile further pressure on Vucic, who has refused to call an early parliamentary election that protesters have demanded.
They also want those responsible for the accident to be punished. A judicial inquiry is meant to find out how the collapse occurred.
Prosecutors have charged 13 people in the collapse, mostly engineers and some government officials. But a trial date has not been set, and many Serbians doubt that the proceedings will fully uncover the alleged corruption they believe is behind the disregard for safety and construction rules.
Though Saturday's event is meant to remember the dead, violent incidents are possible after police used tear gas and charged at protesters at several previous rallies. Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party has organized counter-rallies.
A shooting last week that injured one person at a tent camp hosting Vucic's supporters in Belgrade fueled fears of violence. Vucic has described the shooting as a politically motivated “act of terrorism." One man has been arrested.
Vucic, without offering evidence, also has called protesters “terrorists” working against Serbia under orders from the West. Pro-government media and officials routinely accuse protesters of inciting violence, though most rallies have been peaceful.
University students, meanwhile, have been trekking or cycling across the country to converge in Novi Sad on Saturday. People have come out to greet them along the way.
Hrka said she brushes off the threats she has faced on the street and on social media for backing the students.
“Once you lose what is dearest to your heart, you lose fear,” she said. She credited young people for keeping her going through the worst period of her life.
“I feel better every time I see that beauty and youth, I even smile with them,” Hrka said. "I hope my Stefan is proud of me and of what I am doing.”
FILE - People march during a protest following collapse of a concrete canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, in Belgrade, Serbia, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
FILE - Students march on New Years Eve during a protest that erupted after a concrete canopy fell two months ago, in Belgrade, Serbia, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, a young man who died when the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad fell reacts during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) — Rescuers braved shooting flames, falling debris and the threat of more explosions to evacuate dozens of nursing home residents after a blast ripped through a Pennsylvania facility, killing a resident and an employee, and setting off a frantic search of the wreckage.
Officials said Wednesday they'd located everybody after hours of looking.
The police chief of Bristol Township said he'd “never seen such heroism,” and a speech therapist working there described feeling the building shake in Tuesday's blast and hurriedly wheeling out a bed-bound resident, bed and all.
“They were running into a building that I could — from 50 feet away — could still smell gas, and walls that looked like they were going to fall down,” Police Chief Charles Winik told reporters Wednesday.
Responders spent hours digging through the badly damaged building and checking with hospitals into the night Tuesday to locate the missing. But officials said they didn't yet know the cause of the explosion, even though a utility crew had been on site investigating a reported gas leak.
The blast sent 20 others to hospitals, including one person in critical condition. The rest of the 120 residents were transferred to nearby nursing homes, officials said.
The Bucks County coroner’s office said the employee who died was 52-year-old Muthoni Nduthu. Authorities didn't immediately identify the resident who died at a Philadelphia hospital. Both victims were women.
Nduthu's sister said she was a great mother to her sons, a great wife, a devout Catholic and very involved in the community. A Kenyan immigrant, she went to nursing school, loved to cook and was a hard worker, her sister, Rose Muema, said.
“She was an immigrant who came to make a difference in this country, and she did that,” Muema said.
Nineteen people were still hospitalized Wednesday, Winik said.
The explosion was so powerful that it shook nearby houses for blocks in Bristol, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Philadelphia.
A wing of the facility with the kitchen and cafeteria was almost entirely destroyed, leaving the roof caved in, sections of walls completely missing and windows on adjoining walls blown out. Debris littered the grounds.
Winik said the scale of the casualties could have been much worse. Police and firefighters flooded in from the area, as staff from a hospital next door, nursing home employees and neighbors rushed to help evacuate people. One person was resuscitated at a hospital, officials said.
They found people trapped in stairways and elevator shafts and under rubble, authorities said. Some residents couldn’t walk, and some were in wheelchairs or bed-bound. A second explosion happed as rescues were underway.
Speech therapist Julia Szewczyk described the experience as terrifying and devastating.
She was in a group therapy session in another part of the building when it began to shake. She and other staff rushed to evacuate residents across a street to safety.
“And then the next thing was, to go inside and grab more people,” Szewczyk, 25, said.
They dragged out a bed-bound resident into the cold, then Szewczyk ran back into the burning building twice to grab blankets from a supply closet. One coworker got trapped inside an elevator when the power went out, she said.
Outside, during the rescue, employees had been looking for Nduthu, Szewczyk recalled.
Federal agencies were set to assist in the investigation, but the collapsed walls and roof needed to be cleared first, Winik said.
A utility crew was responding to reports of a gas odor when the explosion happened, authorities have said. The local gas utility, PECO, said the crew shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility, but didn’t know if utility equipment or gas was involved in the blast.
Musuline Watson, who said she was a certified nursing assistant at the facility, told WPVI-TV that staff smelled gas over the weekend, but did not initially suspect a serious problem because there was no heat in that room. Other employees told Szewczyk they smelled gas earlier in the day Tuesday, Szewczyk said.
The nursing home recently became affiliated with Ohio-based Saber Healthcare Group, which called the explosion “devastating” and said in a statement that facility personnel promptly reported the gas odor to the local gas utility before the blast.
Willie Tye, who lives about a block away, said he was watching a basketball game when he heard a loud boom.
“I thought an airplane or something came and fell on my house,” he said.
Levy and Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press reporters Mingson Lau in Bristol, Pennsylvania; Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.
First responders are on the scene of a fire after an explosion at a nursing home in Bristol Township, Pa., on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (WPVI-TV/6ABC via AP)
First responders work the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol Township, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Wheelchairs and other debris are scattered amid structural damage after a massive explosion and fire caused a collapse at a nursing home in Bristol, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
A view of the structural damage after a massive explosion and fire caused a collapse at a nursing home in Bristol, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
First responders work the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
First responders work at the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Investigators work around Bristol Health & Rehab Center and surrounding rubble after a gas explosion the day prior on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
Investigators work around Bristol Health & Rehab Center and surrounding rubble after a gas explosion the day prior on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
A responder navigates around Bristol Health & Rehab Center and surrounding rubble after a gas explosion the day prior on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
