Residents give government two days to clear area

Residents living near the fireworks factory that exploded three weeks ago in Gharghur gave the authorities two days to start talks regarding the damages they sustained and clear what is left of the St Helen's factory.

In a judicial protest filed yesterday, they held the government and the Police Commissioner responsible for damages they have suffered as a result of the explosion, which killed five people on June 27.

The protest also calls on the authorities to immediately withdraw the licences of the St Helen factory and the Briffa factory right next to it, holding the government and the Police Commissioner also responsible for any future incidents.

The protest is likely to be the first move in a battle the residents intend fighting against the authorities.

Not only have the authorities not taken any steps to safeguard the life and property of the residents, the protest says, but, on the contrary, they have done everything in their power to protect the fireworks factories to the detriment of the residents.

The protest says that the Cabinet had directly intervened in 2001 to bypass the regulations that would have forced the closure of both factories.

The law regulating fireworks factories, the Explosives Ordinance, provides for a 183-metre safety buffer from any inhabited place or street that is "used regularly". The factories are located less than 50 metres from the road that connects Naxxar and Ta' l-Ibrag.

Yet, after an explosion at the Briffa factory in 2000, which caused partial explosions at St Helen's, the Cabinet regularised the position of the factories through a memo that rendered the street next to the factories a "private road", reserved exclusively for "farmers, residents and fireworks factory employees".

This, according to an Ombudsman report issued in May this year which dealt with the matter, means that the street in question is "used as irregularly as possible", making the factories "legal".

Had the situation remained as it was, the Ombudsman's report had noted, "the authorities responsible for licensing the fireworks factories would risk falling foul of the Explosives Ordinance.

The residents are challenging this legal interpretation, insisting that both the government and the Police Commissioner are responsible for putting their life and property at risk.

The Explosives Ordinance, the residents' legal counsel, Stefan Camilleri, told The Times, places the onus on the Police Commissioner in saying that no licence shall be granted "unless the necessary precautions for protecting life and property have been taken".