Almost a month since MaltaToday broke the story of the illegal AFM high explosives cache in Gozo and the prime minister’s pledge to sort out the potentially catastrophic situation, this newspaper can reveal that the army has placed detonators close to radar transmitters, leaving the safety risks as high as ever.
Despite the “immediate full review” of the situation demanded by Lawrence Gonzi after a decade of inaction on clear warnings that the Nadur army base is a catastrophe waiting to happen, the army hastily separated the detonators from tons of high explosives only to put them in what is considered as a “high risk area” by explosives experts.
In fact, not only were they put in equally unsafe conditions in a room just behind the AFM shooting range, as reported two weeks ago, but sources have now also confirmed that the room is also just a few metres away from a radar transmitter, against standard detonator storage safety requisites.
The detonators were already within the radar’s range when they were illegally stored together with the explosives in the AFM’s garage. And the only alternative site to Nadur as short listed by the army itself in a memo sent to the prime minister’s office a decade ago, next to the Gordan Lighthouse, also poses the same problem of a radar transmitter in the area.
Last week, the head of the Defence Directorate at the Office of the Prime Minister went on site at the AFM base in Gozo to check for herself the precarious situation described in alarming terms in army memos as far back as 10 years ago.
Although the official correspondence leaked to MaltaToday clearly shows direct correspondence between the army, the Gozo ministry and the prime minister’s office, all of them have been sitting on the warnings since 1998.
As things stand, the AFM store remains an illegal depository of explosives until an alternative site is found according to international standards.
AFM had indicated the area next to Gordan Lighthouse as the ideal site to relocate their explosives store 10 years ago, but the Gozo ministry had refused to fork out the funds to construct a road leading to the site.
The only legal and remaining alternative would be transporting the explosives back to Fort Mosta – an option that has been postponed by the government in its bid to keep Gozitan quarry owners serviced with explosives.