Back to square one

"The day the sky caught fire" was the title given to a documentary produced by an American fire authority on a liquid petroleum gas disaster at a Mexican depot. This depot, when erected, was located according to the distances permitted by safety regulations, however, by time, habitation started to move closer and closer until it reached the depot's edge.

One day a fire broke out at the depot. It was not controlled in time and the gas tanks started to bleve (when a tank explodes from another tank's fire). The pieces of metal scattered for miles breaking into houses and killing people in their sleep. A heavy downpour of fire fell on the nearby villages. Human torches were running aimlessly until they dropped dead. This was one of the worst world disasters ever to happen, as so brilliantly narrated by Orson Wells in the documentary.

In Malta the gas depot is situated on the south-east coast of the island in Qajjenza. This site was chosen because of the isolated area at the time. A few years after the erection of the depot, residential building permits were issued against all safety regulations. As years passed, on the west side of the gas plant a whole housing estate was erected. To add to this grave situation, after 1975, on the closure of the town gas facility, the LP Gas depot had to be expanded, because of demand.

At present 2,800 million tons of gas are stored in no fewer than 20 high pressurised gas tanks, some of which are only a few metres away from inhabited buildings - a restaurant even had a chimney on the depot's boundary wall.

It was unanimously agreed that, since the inhabitants could by now not be moved, the gas depot should. This was years ago and to date there is still nothing constructive yet. Studies and reports there were by the hundreds, including mine.

The first site was identified near Benghajsa but, before any studies could be carried out, this site was used by the electricity division to dispose of coal ash. The second site was ix-Xoqqiet, close to the Freeport. This site was declared by the government of the day as the site for the gas depot; it was at the same time dug up for other purposes and left as a huge hole with a protected cliff face.

As the transfer of the gas division was supposed to be imminent, no huge capital expenditures were voted for the protection of the nearby inhabitants, such as explosion walls, water curtains and deluge sprayers. Some foreign experts even suggested evacuation drills for the inhabitants but these were out of the question, so as not to alarm the people.

We now thank the European laws that do not accept any further delays and the gas depot has to close down before, God forbids, something similar to Mexico happens.

As for the new depot, this is still on the drawing board so I presume that on the closure of the existing one gas-filled cylinders will have to be imported. This reminds me of the introduction of gas cylinders in Malta in the early 1960s when the present depot was not yet erected. Now after so many years we are back to square one.