Around a dozen ‘storm susceptible’ trees along an arterial road are still waiting to get pruned or uprooted altogether to protect motorists some two months after one driver lost his life.  

Ronald Cuschieri the General Manager of the Environment Landscape Consortium yesterday told the Times of Malta that several trees along Triq Notabile in Mrieħel would be trimmed as soon as it received the go-ahead from the Environment and Resources Authority.

Dan Udrea, 38, was killed and his wife seriously injured back in February when their car was hit by a falling tree in stormy weather. Irina Udrea was later discharged and her husband’s body flown back to Romania.

The tree that caused the fatal incident had become uprooted in strong winds that lashed the island in winter.

ELC not empowered to decide which trees could be removed

It came hurtling through the windscreen of the Romanian couple’s car. Shortly after the incident the authorities had reviewed the state of the trees along the arterial road to assess if any action needed to be taken to protect motorists.

Asked why no trees had yet been removed despite some having been marked with high-visibility tape, Dr Cuschieri yesterday told Times of Malta that most of the trees that had been identified had only needed pruning. 

“Maybe one or two trees will need uprooting and removing due to safety concerns,” he said. 

Dr Cuschieri added that the ELC was not empowered to decide which trees could be removed. Instead a supervisory board makes recommendations which are then handed over to ERA for further consideration.  Meanwhile, ELC staff yesterday said that had been inundated with calls from motorists and pedestrians since the February incident.

“We have received so many calls from people who are concerned about trees that need trimming or get dangerously close to toppling over in stormy weather,” the employees said.

They went on to qualify that it was difficult to tell which trees needed taken care of or cut down.

“If we had to chop down every tree that could potentially get blown away in a storm, we’d probably have to uproot most of the trees along the country’s roads,” one employee said.