Witness casts doubts on source of Palumbo dockyard noise

A Senglea resident has cast doubt on the origin of an unbearable noise which an association of residents is blaming on a ship at the Palumbo shipyard.

Magistrate Aaron Bugeja continued hearing witnesses in the case against the Palumbo shipyards. The court began hearing evidence yesterday, a day after a criminal complaint was filed by a group of residents from the Senglea Residents Association, who claim that the incessant noise coming from the facility has made their lives a misery.

The police believe the source of the noise to be a generator aboard the vessel Hamal and have charged the vessel's captain and engine superintendent with disturbing the repose of the residents during the night. Palumbo director Joseph Calleja is also charged.

But Jesmond Bonnici, who lives “a corner away from the Senglea bastions,” presented an alternative possibility when he took the witness stand this afternoon.

“Recently a ship called Grande Argentina came into the shipyard and that's when the sound of the generator started,” he said. “I've lived there for twenty years and I know what's going on in there.” Once the ship was shifted to dock six, the noise abated somewhat, said the witness.

Asked about the Hamal, he said it was a distance away from his house.

The Grande Argentina was moored to the jetty of dock six, he said. “The sound was penetrating. It wasn't something you could just shut out.”

He claimed to be “99% certain” that the noise was coming from the Grande Argentina, adding that the plume of smoke from the smokestack was evidence of this. “The other noises were workers noises, but this noise would go on for 24 hours. It never stops. It drives you crazy.”

This morning and afternoon saw two policemen from the local police station testify to having been sent to the shipyard to investigate complaints that the facility was causing a night time disturbance. Whilst speaking to a security guard, the ranking officer said that he heard noise “that sounded a distance away.” He had been told by the guard that the sound was coming from a generator, the officer said.

The sergeant explained that he had investigated two reports, one received at 11pm and the other at around 1:15am. “The second time I didn’t hear the machinery sounds that I heard the first time... The second time I only heard the generator.”

Defence lawyer Abigail Bugeja asked the witness whether he heard the noise at the entrance of the shipyard. He had only heard it after passing through the gates, he said.

Lawyer Matthew Brincat, also for the defence, asked the officer whether he heard it as he approached the ships. The witness said he had not. He had started to hear sounds when he was around 50 metres away from Dock 5. He could not hear the noises from Dock 6, he said. “He was asleep,”  a man in the public gallery could be heard remarking. 

Such was the disturbance that one woman claimed that she had resorted to using sleeping pills. Senglea resident Rita Vassallo testified that the noise had rattled her glass balcony door. “It sounded like a car running” and was coming from the direction of the dockyard. She could identify the direction it was coming from but not what caused it. “What I know is that the glass would vibrate. Then I'd take a sedative and go to sleep.”

The police had spoken to Palumbo director Angelo Depasquale over the phone and ordered him to stop the disturbance. The sergeant described the noise he had heard as “sounding like machinery working in the distance.” As the officers were driving to the shipyard, near the Ghajn Dwieli tunnel, he could hear hammering sounds, he added, explaining that the tunnel is directly above the shipyard.

Police paid the site a second visit, following a report from an English-speaking caller who claimed that the noise was still ongoing. But this time there was no banging sounds, just a hum, which he said was coming from a shipborne generator. This humming noise was barely noticeable from the Ghajn Dwieli tunnel, said the witness.

The officer said he saw the generator at the back of the vessel. It was a large generator on the aft portion of the tug. The humming noise was coming from its direction. “You could hear it, in the night time silence.”

Cross-examined by Bugeja, the officer said he had not heard the sounds from the station and had not called at the home of the complaining resident to hear the noise for himself.

The officer had never seen a ship’s generator before, he admitted however, and neither had the police verified whether there had been any other generators in the area. He had heard the hum of a generator however. It was coming from the direction of Dock 5, where the tugboat Hamal was berthed, he said.

The officer could not say whether there had been any other ships in the dockyard at the time.

Lawyer Abigail Bugeja told the court that the vessel was due to sail tomorrow and a crew change was scheduled to take place. “If something were to happen on the ship at the moment, there is no captain or technical superintendent on board and there could be very serious consequences.”

The case continues tomorrow afternoon.