Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/827043
maltatoday, TUESDAY, 23 MAY 2017 News 8 CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 The flames that engulfed the Sant'Antnin waste treatment facility could take days to extin- guish, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela has warned. The fire started yesterday af- ternoon at around 1.30 in the plant's Refuse Derived Fuels (RDF) section – the part of the facility where recycled material is stored and processed. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident. A magisterial inquiry has been launched to determine the cause of the blaze. Owing to the magnitude of the fire, the necessary human resources were being dedicated with a coordinated effort involv- ing the Police Force, the Armed Forces of Malta, the Civil Pro- tection Department, as well as NGOs to increase manpower. Reporters on site could witness high flames which continued to spread, despite efforts by fire- fighters who spent hours before they finally managed to stop the spread. Hours later, the plume of smoke remained visible from several parts of the island. Flanked by Environment Min- ister José Herrera, Abela deliv- ered the comments during an impromptu press conference at the Sant'Antnin Family Park, which is next door to the waste recycling plant. The minister appealed to members of the public to avoid the area. Abela also said that the direc- tion the smoke was travelling did not necessitate the evacuation of residents in the vicinity. "Though there is a lot of smoke, there is currently no danger that the fire will continue spreading," he said. According to Herrera, the stor- age of RDF materials always in- volved a "certain amount of risk" and that it was ultimately "a mo- dus operandi" that WasteServ had inherited. WasteServ CEO Tonio Mon- tebello explained that a part of the material is exported after it is separated and that for this to take place it must be batched, with the process taking place on a regular basis. Herrera also pointed out that this incident was one of the rea- sons that the plant was being dismantled, adding that moving it to the "engineered landfill" in Maghtab will "minimize the risk" of a similar incident. Asked what precautions were in place to prevent such an occur- rence, given that it was not such an unlikely scenario, Montebello said that facilities employees had been trained in fire-fighting and that the plant's reservoirs where always full and ready for such a situation. Efforts, he added, were con- stantly being made to minimize the amount of stock kept on-site, and that in some cases, materi- als were kept in glass containers to minimize the risk of combus- tion. "Disciplinary measures have also intensified with respect to employees smoking within the environs of the premises," Mon- tebello added. istro Direction of smoke did not necessitate evacuation of residents Environment minister Herrera said the storage of RDF materials always involved a "certain amount of risk" and that it was ultimately "a modus operandi" that WasteServ had inherited