No reports of illegal fireworks before Naxxar blast - Commissioner

The police have found no evidence of any reports having ever been lodged at Naxxar police station about illegal fireworks being made or stored in the area where a garage blew up and demolished three houses in Naxxar on March 11, Police Commissioner John Rizzo said.

Speaking on Xarabank on TVM, Mr Rizzo thanked the members of the public who have since reported illegal fireworks at various sites, saying six people have so far been arraigned.

Comments

Stephen Florian (on 30/3/08)

Considering the sequence of tragic events,whatever was "legal" until recently should now be revised. The 183 metre safety distance should now be upgraded in the same way as have been unofficially upgraded the explosive intensity of the petards produced.
The St.Michael's Fireworks Factory in Lija is next door to Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary and two other Schools. The Fireworks factory users consider that they are at a safe distance and yet the stench of gunpowder at the school is a regular incidence.
When these petards are launched from behind the school boundary wall, the Naxxar Higher Secondary is used by a local language school.The French students present are usually driven out of their wits with the intensity of the explosions,and yet summer life goes on.

On the other side of the fields, in the direction of Iklin, there is the main entrance to the Lija Fireworks Factory which is totally unobstructed, and unguarded so that anyone can trespass for whatever intention.

However those who are licensed to run the Lija Fireworks factory will assure you that inspite a history of minor and major even fatal accidents, we should rest our minds and enjoy our "safe distance" as their next door neighbour.
They argue that if they are made to relocate their factory , then land speculators will come in to fill the territory with villas and make millions of Euros, well they might be right, but I ask ,which Value is most precious, is it the Value of Human Life or the stubbornness of a handful of pyrofanatics.
How long will this perverse logic prevail in Malta, perhaps till the next tragedy ? Weren't Ta' Xwieki and Naxxar not strong enough, or are we unredeemable as a nation ?

Corinne Vella (on 29/3/08)

The focus should be on removing danger rather than illegality. The fireworks factory in San Gwann was and is legal. Yet, when it blew up it damaged people's homes anyway.