Municipalities affected by the 2014 Vrbětice blasts to get compensation

The municipalities affected by the 2014 Vrbětice munitions blasts and the Zlín region should receive compensation to the tune of 350 million crowns by the end of the year, MEP Stanislav Polčák, who has advocated the right of the locals to compensation, told reporters in Zlín.

The series of explosions, which have since been linked to Russian agents, killed two employees of the munitions depo and caused close to a billion crowns in damages. Thousands of people were temporarily evacuated from their homes.

Local villages claim extensive damages to roads, both in the blast and by the clean-up operation that followed, nearby forests were closed off for years and arable land was rendered useless. Forest owners lost money from planned sales of wood which was damaged by shrapnel. So far the villagers have only received 3,100 crowns each for the inconvenience of having had to evacuate.