My Archives: March 2008

My Archives: March 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Report from Albania II
More news added at the bottom of my Albania page.
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 05:41 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Report from Albania
Upon my enquiry about the sad news reaching us from Albania, I receive the following answer from my special correspondent, Kozeta Cuadari Çika:
Hi Christian,

Thanks for writing. I and my family are okay, but really shocked.

The explosion was close to Tirana, nearly 15 kilometres. We felt it strongly and it seemed like an atomic bomb. It was a storehouse where munition was collected from every part of the country, and where more than 100 people worked for dismantling it.

The sad news is that it was quite close to a village of 5000 people.The nearest house was 100 metres away. There are almost 2000 houses damaged; 300 in ruins and 250 badly destroyed. 270 people are seriously injured and receiving hospital treatment, 10 of which are flown urgently to Italy. Until now are found 7 dead bodies, but tens of people are not found yet. There were more than 100 people working at the time of the explosion, so probably their bodies are ashes now. More people are supposed to be under the ruins of the houses closer to the munition storehouse. The fires have been burning during the whole night and stopped only this morning. Now army and police forces are searching for unexploded shells and people who may be buried under the ruins of the houses.

The funny thing is that the government isn't taking responsibility and there is no resignation on the part of the Minister of Defence or the Prime Minister yet. They say that it is the fault of the American company, contracted to perform the dismantling of munition. On the other hand, the American Company pretends that their contract was over on 7 December, and since then it was passed to an Albanian Company.

The question is: How can you build such a dangerous storehouse, with no proper technical conditions and no trained workers, so close to inhabited places?
You know, our international airport is very close to this place, and there were damaged windows in the VIP terminal of this airport. A lot of cars were damaged while driving on the motorway from Tirana to Durres.

There were a lot of women and children aged 14 and up working there, all poor people who didn't take the great risk into consideration. There was no proper information on what was done in that storehouse on the part of the ordinary people. Once it had been a military base. I didn't know it, either. They say that it could have been a catastrophe, if the explosion started from the tunnels holding the munition. The whole city of Tirana might have been in ashes now. We are lucky to be alive.

There is aid coming from the neighbouring countries, Kosovo and Macedonia, in blood and plasma for the wounded people. There is strong solidarization with the families of the victims and the wounded people. Most of the citizens of Tirana have been giving blood and other aids in clothes, food and shelter for them.

That's all for now.

Best,

Kozeta

Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 06:41 PM GMT+1 [Link]

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