The two-mile evacuation radius in Plymouth and the equivalent in Malta
Published:
April 1, 2014 at 6:57pm
The evacuation carried out in a two-mile radius of the LNG explosion in Plymouth (US) yesterday involved just 300-1000 people.
But a two-mile radius of the LNG tanker which will be moored in Marsaxlokk bay means 25,000 adults (registered electors), their minor children, resident aliens (non-electors) and immigrants with or seeking asylum status.
We’re looking at moving some 40,000 people if that thing blows up – and that’s just the people who live there, not the ones who work there and whose jobs (and businesses) are at risk.
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U ejja, what’s the fuss. Nobody died in the explosion, ta! Only four injured and they should all be fine. Mela Simon gej bil-50 nuclear bombs jew x’qal!
The gas explosion on the tanker in the Malta Drydocks some years ago killed nine people. Does one need say more?
The injured four mean nothing to you spb? We will see what the fuss would be all about if God forbid anything like that happens in Malta.
Ehm. I didn’t expect to be taken seriously. But I can just imagine PM Jo thinking that this puts him one up on all his critics.
There was an explosion at an LNG plant and ‘only’ 4 injured. Simon Busuttil is just scaremongering when he says that an accident could cause countless fatalities. I could swear that that’s he way he sees it, and of course the same goes for 50% of the population +18,000.
Ma nafx ghaliex il-pajjiz ghandu jiehu dan ir-riskju!
Pero nghidu wkoll li n-nies tal-inhawi passivi u illupjati ukoll.
Kemm ahna pajjiz tan-nejk. Tista temmen li ma ssemma xejn fl-ahbarijiet tat-8 tal-PBS?
The levels of delusion in this country are mind boggling. Either that or we’re a primitive, uneducated lot.
That Labour has to abuse these weaknesses and get away with it remains the country’s quest for a reason.
No wonder there’s this longing for ‘helsien’. This morning’s editorial on Times of Malta was a good read, freedom is being independent.
What an unnecessary fuss.
Ghandna tal-Protezzjoni Civili… fenomenali.
Għandna wkoll r-Rapid Intervention Unit ukoll, la Manwel Mallia.
Most of the 25,000 adults (registered electors) voted to have the LNG plant on their doorstep to have cheaper electricity bills like you and I want.
Don’t try to persuade them to oppose this setup. If you’re sleeping in Bidnija, you wouldn’t even hear anything.
Jekk jogħogbok tħassarx festi, Daphne.
You have to be a Gahan not to see the risks involved. I live in that part of Malta, but those who don’t shouldn’t think they are free of the problems. If the gas supply/power station blows up, we’ll all suffer.
One should never underestimate Maltese stupidity. Ask Arriva about that, or look at all the people who voted for Jo and his collection of skip rejects and Mintoffian fossils.
God – or nature – has on the whole spared Malta the incidence of major natural disasters: no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no erupting volcanoes, no really serious floods. So we have to invent our own disasters not to feel left out.
This is mind over matter: I don’t mind if it explodes, and you don’t matter to me as long as my electricity bills are cheaper.
Tom double thumb, Malta experienced a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the 18th century, where every building in Valletta suffered some kind of damage and the Mdina Cathedral became a heap of rubble.
A big Tsunami washed the low-lying Mellieha fields which rendered them infertile for many years. That was when there was an earthquake which decimated Messina, around a hundred years ago.
We are not immune.
Is the power station within the two-mile radius ?
I can’t understand the government’s incredible pig-headedness. God forbid that such an explosion takes place. What will Jo be saying then to the victims and their families?
Joseph Muscat will say that the Nationalists did it.
Id-dispjacir huwa TAGHNA LKOLL
Moving them? That is if they survive it.
Not to mention the fact that the whole country will be affected. It will be a nationwide disaster, so those people who are thinking that just because they don’t live there it doesn’t effect them, think again.
How irresponsible and possibly criminal of Muscat, his entire cabinet and those standing by to make (even more) money of this hair-brained investment.
My thoughts.
Don’t forget MEPA, please
Bla kliem.
I give up.
And the idiots of the south still believe that Jo is right all along and that there is no danger.
Besides the residents and businesses in the area, what is most worrying is the power station. What would be the consequence for Malta if the power station had to blow up. Is there a plan B?
of course there is:
Plan B- lampa tal-pitrolju and spiritiera ta’ bi tlieta
Plan C – log fire from Buskett Forest
Plan D – Solar whatever
Plan E – adjusting to live like bats
If the above plans do not work we emigrate to China.
I only hope that Joseph Muscat won’t tell us that the Plymouth (US) gas explosion is Daphne’s or PN’s April’s Fool.
Marsaxlokk has a population of 3,277
Birzebbuġa has a population of 9,977
Żejtun and Marsascala would have to be partially evacuated – their populations are 11,277 and 10,024 respectively (although apparently Marsascala swells to just above 20,000 in summer).
Needing to evacuate probable just under 20,000 people would be interesting. I bet Muscat would love to put up lots of tents!
Has anyone equated the volume of LNG in the Washington State incident with the volume that will be contained in the LNG storage ship in Marsaxlokk bay?
I wonder if there will be any changes in insurance premiums on private and commercial properties in this area.
Politics aside, what would you, Daphne Caruana Galizia, suggest as the next best alternative in case the LNG tanker plan is scrapped?
[Daphne – That alternative was on stream already: gas pipeline and interconnector with Sicily.]
So the Sicily project was aborted?
It was more or less aborted way back under a Nationalist government. They never really put their hearts into it, and in the end the inanities of the electoral campaign took over. The most puzzling thing about the entire story is the complete silence from DeMajo Group.
HPB, then the PN were utterly moronic not to use this as a trump card for the electoral campaign. As far as I know they never really ‘marketed’ the project.
Labour, on the other hand, bypassed all ecological, scientific and safety considerations and stuck to a strong slogan which is all the basic Maltese person wanted to hear: “cheaper utility bills”. PN’s inefficiency is PL’s gain.
@Joe Fenech
One would have to re-examine if there was a breaks-on dragging of the feet approach by key players to undermine any PN Government effort at the time.
Did it pay them more to resume normal reflex speed under Labour?
What was the total deal secured?
Ieqaf xewwex, Defni! The PM said that it is safer to dock the tanker in port than a couple of miles away. I would like to hear what the Marsaxlokk mayor has to say now.
He lives there and his parents too. Is he still willing to trade his family’s safety for those 30 silver coins he was given?
If an accident were to occur causing only a one-metre hole in an LNG tanker it would create a vapour cloud anywhere from 2,100 to 15,000 feet depending on wind speed, air temperature, and water temperature.
In the event that the vapour caught fire, it would be impossible to extinguish or contain.
In the remote event the vapour cloud did not catch fire, it would suffocate all life within its boundaries.
http://www.nolng.org/contactus.html
I’m a realist.
I am more worried at present about the gas cylinders my crazy neighbours store in bright sunlight on their balconies in my vicinity.
Nearby Italy uses nuclear energy. If one of their reactors explodes, will we not be affected by the resulting fallout?
What happens if one of the heavy duty tanks on wheels transporting fuel to the petrol stations in our narrow and traffic- jammed streets has to explode, what then?
What about the possibility of a plane crashing in a heavily populated area in Malta during one of those air craft shows?
Personally , the above scenarios are of more concern to me then the present LNG tanker controversy.
Your worries are misplaced. Italy has not had nuclear power since 1990.
Not according to what some Italian politicians were saying yesterday on Rai’s Porta -a -Porta late last night.
So being a realist means that you do not worry about adding another potentially massive disaster to the ones you mentioned.
Worrying about issues that I have little control on is detrimental to my current, very real health issues, unfortunately. I was simply giving my two cents worth, anyway.
Arrest Miliband and the leaders of the Labour Party immediately. It must have been them.
Busuttil, you are warned not to swim out to that ship and sabotage it just like they clearly did. That most astute of prime ministers, Joseph Muscat, revealed that he was onto you on Xarabank. Be warned foolish one! (sorry for the exclamation marks)
Ah, so you thought he didn’t know ey Busuttil? How foolish of you.
Militanti socjalisti, if any of you see Busuttil in swimming trunks in Marsaxlokk please get to the nearest telephone and call the KGB.
Oh, I have just seen the US part. My apologies. I can’t blamed for those colonials stealing all of Britain’s toponyms. Easily fixed by replacing the first sentence with: Arrest the leaders of the Republican Party at once.
From the 40,000 one needs to subtract all those that die from the blast
Meanwhile in Libya: http://www.vice.com/vice-news/inside-libyas-militias
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/01/23/offshore-gas-terminals-mass-bust-far/Qu8dyZzF6yBNAsDNaTT1ZJ/story.html
Muscat always takes the easy way out. That’s his default position. If it was easier to take us out of the EU or the Euro than stay in, he would take us out.
Quoting Jo: “Turning specifically to the new power station project, Dr Muscat said the government felt it would be easier to have a gas tanker berthed there than to build large tanks on shore. That way, the tanker could be removed once it was no longer needed.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140323/local/muscat-choice-is-between-those-who-scaremonger-and-those-who-offer-a-good-future.511837
Mooring the LNG tanker in the vicinity of a densely populated and industrialized zone is a very clever and subtle idea of our Jo – his Big Bang Theory, one that will solve many of his problems in just a few seconds.
Imagine an explosion on just one of the tanks on the LNG tanker causing so many thousands of fatalities.
There would be a phenomenal reduction in the native population and at the same time create space for the new passport holders.
The cancer factory would be eliminated for ever.
Henley & Whatever would have more property to sell once the gas-cloud had dispersed.
Jo might even win favour with the EU by accepting some asylum seekers who would be settled in the zone closest to the disaster area (just in case there is a second explosion).
Would that not go a long way towards satisfying little Jo’s big dream of being regarded as a world figure? Of course, the world would set up a disaster fund for Malta and money would keep rolling in. And would not Michelle enjoy telling her children how great and clever their father is/was/will be?
Well, all the heroes saying that there is no danger should get themselves and their families and go and live at Marsaxlokk. Houses are cheaper now, so they’re lucky.
Meanwhile in Livorno, Italy the LNG tanker is situated out at sea and has a strict 2 mile exclusion zone around it. I wonder why ?
Maybe someone out there with access to electronic nautical charts can upload the relevant charts.
I sometimes wonder quite simply if his bunch didn’t all invest in property from Sliema upwards before news of this came out, certain as they were with the elections.
After all, another side effect is that whilst all property that side of South has decreased, property from Sliema Northwards would have increased in value.
Look how far Marie Louise Coleiro went for comfort: at the first chance she decided to scarper whilst not yet in position.
There you go, scare-mongering again. Evacuation may be required in the USA, but not in Malta as long as Joseph Muscat is prime minister.