Tins don't nearly blow your head off

One of my neighbours, a father of two small children, nearly had his head blown off on Thursday. He is in hospital with serious injuries after he disposed of some rubbish in a skip in Mdina Road, Qormi.

I first became aware of the accident when I met the young man's father on Friday morning. He told me that the accident had been reported in that day's L-Orizzont.

The family was obviously in shock, but I did manage to gather that while he was throwing rubbish in the skip an explosion occurred, the full force of which caught him in the face. His jaw was smashed.

I was informed by the Orizzont story that "some items, probably tins that were in the skip, exploded". Later it said that "the tins or some other objects exploded".

Then we were told that the young man had been very lucky, since a group of civil protection officers happened to be driving past and stopped to help him, and that "it has been excluded that the explosion was caused by fireworks materials".

I found this rather odd. Why would we be told, after reading that "tins or some other objects" were in the skip when it exploded, that fireworks had nothing to do with it?

I decided to phone the police to get their version of events. "The skip contained fireworks materials", the officer at the Community and Media Relations Unit (CMRU) told me. "But they were not the cause of the explosion", he volunteered, before I had asked him any questions.

But I thought that the skip contained tins, I told him. "The tins were fireworks materials," he told me.

What else was in the skip? I wanted to know. The officer said I was to ring him back while he checked with the investigating officer. Would it not be simpler if I spoke to the investigating officer directly? Apparently not. If we are not allowed to speak to investigating officers, it would be interesting to know why.

I rang back and was told that there was nothing else in the skip except the fireworks tins.

Okay, so if the only items in the skip were the fireworks tins and they did not cause the explosion, what did? I wondered.

I asked the officer what the rubbish the victim had thrown in the skip consisted of. "Domestic waste," I was told.

Well, domestic stuff does not usually blow up in one's face. So since I was told the man was working when the accident happened I asked the officer whether he was sure it was domestic waste.

I would have to call back for that to be confirmed, I was told. I duly did and was told that Inspector D'Anastasi was in charge of the investigation but was not on duty and the officer at his station told the CMRU that "no foul play was suspected" and the accident had been more of a fire than an explosion.

I had not intimated that I suspected foul play. The officer at the CMRU was a bright lad and when I told him that fires do not usually smash your jaw to smithereens, and explained that the young man involved was being operated on to have his jaw put right as we spoke, he agreed with me and said that probably the officer he spoke to was not in possession of the facts.

Why is everyone taking such pains to ensure that fireworks are not connected to the explosion? And if they were not, something else must have caused the contents to blow up in the victim's face.

Can anyone just throw away hazardous materials in skips? Are there fines for those who abuse their use? Surely the tins can be traced back to the manufacturer.

This is not an act of God; someone is responsible for this accident which could have had even more serious consequences.

I read on Thursday that the Infrastructure and Resources Ministry is to get tough on enforcement on illegal dumping. Will this cover the dumping of hazardous materials in skips?

Dumping of rubbish and white goods might cause an eyesore, but the dumping of explosive material in skips can cause loss of life or serious injury. Does anyone care?

Public access

Kampanja dwar il-kamapanja was the gist of the main front page story in the Church newspaper Il-Gens yesterday week. I had hoped to write about it last week, but I ran out of 'page'.

In case any non-Maltese speakers have been seeing this title bandied about in the local media lately, this is not a campaign about a campaign.

Languages are funny things and unless one is familiar with all the nuances one can easily get it wrong. The word for countryside and campaign is exactly the same, not only in our language but certainly in French and Italian, and maybe even others I am not familiar with.

The campaign has been organised to try and save the little bit of countryside we have left. Now I am not a great rambler, but on the rare occassions I have tried to enjoy the beauty of nature in the wild,

(I know, I know, a wasp sting is as wild as it might get here, but you know what I mean) I have been discouraged either by the 'subtle' threat of seeing a car with all its tyres let down, or the more overt threat of a hunter waving his shotgun about while screaming at us to buzz off.

Unfortunately, the only time the hunters lose out on 'land ownership' (RTO) is when property speculation takes over. Either way ordinary mortals lose out.

However, it is not only the countryside that the public is losing access to. Our beaches are also getting less and less accessible and our coastline is being taken up by developers and small entrepreneurs when it comes to sandy beaches like Mellieha.

I was pleased to see that a young mother did not allow a bullying operator to chase her family away unless she rented beach equipment from him.

It is not as though we have got that many sandy beaches that we can afford to practically close off large chunks to the general public. The few sandy beaches are ideal for family outings in the summer and it would be a sad indictment on our society if we prevent our children from enjoying the simple pleasures a beach can offer in their summer holidays.

Land reclamation

I am not talking about reclaiming land from the sea I am talking about reclaiming land from the pedestrian to accommodate property developers.

Last week we published a photo of an 'interrupted' pavement, which meant that pedestrians were forced onto a busy road, risking life and limb.

I have often been tempted to spend time roaming around with a camera and taking shots of all the construction sites, which take over not only the pavements but, more often than not, some of the road access too.

For reasons I shall not go into, I keep having to postpone this exercise, maybe one of these days! But one glaring example is at Manuel Dimech Street. Halfway up from the Strand on the left-hand side of a very busy junction the pavement has been reduced to a few centimetres.

The term rat run springs to mind. Anybody else is pushed on to the road. Doesn't MEPA take account of these things? It should.

That building again

People writing about the Brussels extravaganza have referred to the squandering of "our money", but what is more to the point is that it is money that we don't have.

Since we do not have the cash to pay for a Lm9 million property, and "financing had to be arranged" as Daphne put it in The Independent, and she should know since her husband was the legal adviser on the purchase, can somebody tell us what rate of interest we are paying out on the loan and how that pans out with the so-called profit we are to make on the Brussels property"

Frank Salt, a local property dealer, tells us in Thursday's Times that those of us critical of the Brussels purchase lack confidence and pride in our country. Let me assure Mr Salt that we Maltese are proud of our country and confident that we can compete. But to compete successfully one has to have the resources to do so. It is the country's administrators we are not so proud of.

The critics of the purchase are responsible people who do not approve of our government getting further into debt to speculate on property abroad.