In my opinion, the photographs illustrating the collapsed roof of the Ta’ Ġieżu church in Rabat leave little doubt that two miracles occurred.

One is that nobody died. Had the collapse happened while Mass was being said a few hours later things could have been different.

It is an incredible coincidence that two old, independent wooden beams forming part of the roof, located in a place very seldom visited, should collapse together, exactly at the same moment, unless they have been subjected together to a temporary loading, even by pedestrians, a few hours or even a few days, prior to the incident. It is customary that, at this time of the year, prior to the first storms, roofs are inspected and, when necessary, attended to.

The maintenance team probably inspected the roof and, somehow or other, subjected the part that collapsed to temporary stresses, which the two old wooden beams could no longer safely take due to their age and state of deterioration. If this were the case, the collapse was miraculously delayed and the people escaped with their lives.

It is interesting to know whether this assumption has any foundation.