Parish News: Gibraltar Dockyard On Fire (Pt2)
Live and burning on the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation right now!
Compete with BFBS/Radio Gibraltar playing their usual late night selections from the 1980’s as an into-the-night overlay. Surreal.
The first tank has now collapsed, the second is on fire and a third is being dowsed with water to keep it cool. There are two other tanks in the area but they are believed to be secured now.
Three people are now known to have been injured. A 40 year old Spanish man welding on the tank at the time has severe – life threatening – burns and has been taken to hospital in Spain. A policeman, Jared MacIntosh, has been hospitalised after rescuing him.
Tugs are currently on the scene fighting the fire including two hired on the spot from Spain – which won’t be cheap. They will be working out how to score political points out of this already. The liner Ocean Princess is due in to port at 8am so a good few people are going to have their holiday messed around with too.
Police Commissioner Louis Wink has now backed off from the earlier ‘possible terrorism’ line and has retreated to the classic holding position of “no cause known as yet but there was a Spanish bloke with a welding torch working there at the time“.
Nice one Louis. Try to back out of that spin and stay fashionable.
2am local The C3 civil emergency committee chaired by the Chief Minister is reported to still be in session although the local head of environmental health Francis Martin has just found 5 mins spare to nip out for an interview on Gibraltar Radio. Entertainingly he was asked “…and are you monitoring air quality levels” and he deadpanned “no“. Imagine that response anywhere else in the world, eh? They’d have his head on a tray. Gibraltar is marvellous.
4am local And so the politics begins. Earlier in the day the Spanish border slum of La Linea “offered” help. Gibraltar turned it down on the grounds that we’re quite able to deal with this on our own, thanks all the same Alfonso. Now acting Mayor Sanchez has said he’s going to lodge a formal complaint at EU level that Gibraltar has violated some directive or other on cross border cooperation.
Apparently at 5:30am they will be attempting to smother the fire with foam.
4:45am local A fender full of compressed air has just exploded alongside No2 tank when it collapsed in on itself and the whole thing has just gone up in a fireball. The fire has basically put itself out. A Fireman chappie on the radio has just said “this has taken us by surprise” and “we’re now ahead of schedule“. Nice understatement there from top bloke Deputy Fire Officer Dennis Gonzalez. Good lad.
7:00am local It’s all over bar the politikking and the blame-fest.
So they didn’t need help from Hemel Hempstead’s finest (They have Buncefield on their c.v.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire
Whilst not wishing to apportion blame .. I wasn’t there .. and I don’t know the full facts ..
But from my own experience, I’m left wondering who signed the “Hot Work” Chit for that particular job ? ..
No doubt a full-scale, arse-covering, witch-hunt is already in progress ..
Meanwhile, sorry to hear about the Spanish bloke, not a nice way to go .. And I hope Mr MacIntosh’s injuries aren’t too serious either ..
PS .. Did the offer of help from La Linea include use of “The” Donkey .. to piss on the fire .. by any chance ? … >:o 😉
If it had been that big we’d all be toast by now. But we’ve had our share of big incidents here – the detonation of the RFA Bedenham springs immediately to mind of most locals – so the plans for this sort of thing are well worked out. That’s whats been most annoying about the Spanish playing politics with it all.
You’re right, the arse-covering exercise is in full swing already. I know the chap who owns the company involved and he’s a good man – he will be distraught at the injuries and the chaos.
But someone (presumably) signed off on two blokes being on top of that tank with welding gear. The Spanish national has been trasnferred from St Bernards to the Serious Burns Unit at Seville but him and his 25 yr old oppo (who ended up in hospital but dodged any serious injury) are going to be right in the middle of the blamefest whirlwind.
And no, The Donkey couldn’t get an import permit 😀 There are rules about transporting lethal weapons across international borders!
Donkeys years ago a farm worker found himself spread over a wide area after being tasked with freeing a seized cover on a 5,000 gallon (galvanised steel) tank of dilute sulphuric acid used for treating potato blight. Unfortunately he decided to use an oxy-acetylene cutter….
‘Elf & Safety was rarely mentioned back then.
I could not believe the outright politiking that was going on in the Gib Chronical just a day or two after the fire. Apparently they see no shame in jumping down each others throats & aportioning blame before the facts are even out!!!!