Thirteen reception centres had been set up throughout the country and some 70,000 were being put up with Albanian families. Finance minister Anastas Anjgeli said a quarter of the state's annual budget had already been spent on the emergency. The government had had to allocate an extra 140 million dollars to local authorities. Everyday life has been seriously disrupted. Children have had to stay at home while schools are turned into emergency shelters.
Hospitals are full and police overwhelmed.
Investors have fled Albania and only the mafia is prospering through illegal emgiration, largely to Italy across the Adriatic.