Comments on: Another expert FAA didn't consult

By: Arnold sciberras

Arnold sciberras — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:26:31 +0000

I’ve known Dr Deidun long enough to say that our country needs people like him in order to move forward and protect what is rightfully ours. Our natural heritage is slowly withering away and we need people with strong, honest values and a reliable scientific background to safeguard it. He will be an asset to Malta in the EU and this is our opportunity as environmentalists to have our say in the European Parliament.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:57:23 +0000

Why do we keep talking about digging tunnels under buildings when the issue is digging a hole in a square?

[Daphne – Because that’s what Astrid Vella told them.]

By: Ray Borg

Ray Borg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:38:08 +0000

@Antoine Vella
What happened in Cologne shatters the arguments brought in this blog that excavations do no harm to standing structures.

[Daphne – No, it doesn’t – no more than the FACT that women are not bad drivers is shattered by one bad woman driver who mows down a party of schoolchildren. Fact: excavations do not harm standing structures. Fact: the occasional CARELESS excavation may do so. Your illogical reasoning is akin to claiming that all buildings are necessarily unsafe and all people should live in caves because sometimes an apartment block collapses in India. It’s so damned obvious that Maltese schools, with one or two exceptions, train children NOT to think, and that Tal-Muzew compounds the problem.]

By: Moggy

Moggy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:41:20 +0000

@ Antoine: I’m just providing information for those who wish to read it.

By: Antoine Vella

Antoine Vella — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:34:16 +0000

Moggy, when you consider how many tunnels there must be round the world, the list of collapsed buildings you mention is extremely short: four buildings in seven years and two of them in China.

By: Moggy

Moggy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:24:07 +0000

The phenomenon of buildings collapsing during the building or extension of metro lines – and sometimes even after that – seems not to be that rare at all. In 2003, a 6 storey building collapsed in Shangai above the constuction site of a local metro line. Work was going on 20m underground. In 2002 a building situated directly above the metro tunnel in Newcastle collapsed. In 2004, a metro construction site collapsed in Guangzhou, leaving 100 people homeless after their homes were totally or partially destroyed……and now this happened in Cologne.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:58:48 +0000

hmmm…. so they were digging underneath existing buildings in Cologne… Good thing NO ONE was intending to do anything similar here……

By: Moggy

Moggy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:46:04 +0000

“This was a ‘foreseeable catastrophe’.” Eberhard Illner.

By: Ray Borg

Ray Borg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:45:48 +0000

Forget Corriere della Sera. This comes straight from the mouth of the Mayor of Cologne

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090304-17793.html

By: Ray Borg

Ray Borg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:56:31 +0000

NO COMMENT

Corriere della Sera 4 Marzo 2009

[Daphne – Please post the link, not the story. Thanks.]