Chronicle of a tragedy foretold

Edward Bugeja's hands are trembling and he is overcome by shock. Vainly, he tries to remember some basic details as he tells his story, but he just can't come up with the door number of his house in Triq id-Dgħejf, Naxxar. Finally, he gives up. "What's the point," he says. "Now its gone."

I was sitting with the husband and father of two who had just lost everything he possessed simply because someone thought that keeping fireworks mixtures in a garage next door was a good idea. Mr Bugeja had known that tanks of the thinner used by sprayers were kept in that garage. What he did not know was that there were explosives too. When the whole thing blew, it took houses and lives.

Mr Bugeja's only insurance was against his home loan. So, now, he has no mortgage but no house either, no clothes, no wedding photos, no family snapshots, nothing. Another of the residents in Triq id-Dgħejf is in the same predicament, except that he lost his wife too, and the mother of his two children. Lives and lifetimes, up in smoke.

Another two garages, just across the street from the explosion, were also loaded with fireworks explosives. Had these ignited too, we would be looking at an even more tragic scenario in which tens of lives would have been lost. Remember too that last Monday, the morrow of election weekend, practically nobody worked or went to school. Had this happened on that day many of the dead would have been children.

It is clear that the time has come to deal definitively with the threat to life and limb posed by fireworks in our society. I am not suggesting we abolish them. To do that, in my view, is a bad idea in itself because they are an intrinsic part of our culture and our tourism offering. Also, doing that would be tantamount to chasing them underground, so we need to react maturely and reasonably.

What I am suggesting is that, first of all, we declare an amnesty period during which anyone who is storing fireworks illegally may declare himself without incurring a penalty. Those who do not and are subsequently discovered, ought to face severe sanction. We must then draw up a list of all those factories which are less than a very safe distance away from residences.

With that X-ray of the situation duly made, we start to explore the possibility of moving those factories and stores which are dangerously close to inhabited communities, away from them. We must start exploring the possibility of creating three or four manufacturing complexes, all outside the development zone and at a very safe distance from the nearest houses and schools.

The complexes would be administered by representatives of the pyrotechnics community under the strict and regular enforcement of the AFM. A strong emphasis would be made on educating those who work there with respect to the nature and properties of the elements they are handling. The desire to have their own space to conjure their creations in suitable secrecy can be accommodated too, because these complexes could be built with a number of state-of-the-art rooms. The appropriate logistics for storage and transport will then be planned to take account of the fact that the industry would have been concentrated in a few places. If necessary, access to the complex may have to be programmed according to a safety time-table, if it is judged too dangerous to have them all working there at the same time.

The government ought to facilitate the purchase of those chemicals which are safest. Today, due to their expense, they are not widespread in use. Since fireworks are very much a part of our tourist product, and our traditions, we need to put our money where our mouth is and ensure that those with an interest in this, like hotels and incoming tour operators, contribute financially for the product to be delivered safely.

This proposal may be initially unacceptable to fireworks enthusiasts, so we must work on making it attractive to them too. Unless the għaqdiet tan-nar make this project their own, the enduring threat to innocent bystanders, like the 32-year-old mother of two who died in Naxxar this week, will continue unabated.