The accident which befell the 100-metre cargo vessel Carl C last week should surely serve as an eye-opener to the government about its plans to build a wind farm out at sea. A correspondent of The Malta Independent has already referred, some weeks ago, to the danger the heavy shipping in the Mediterranean would pose to the wind farm turbines.

The Carl C incident, in which the vessel dragged its anchor and was carried by the heavy seas into a fish farm cage is exactly the kind of accident which The Malta Independent correspondent forecast.

What would have happened had the vessel smashed into one or more of the wind farm turbines? Obviously, some hundreds of families, or maybe an industrial facility powered by the wind farm’s production, would have lost power.

It has to be appreciated that such incidents are likely to happen in stormy weather, or maybe at night. And in stormy weather who would be taking to sea to go out and repair the turbine damage? Or would families have to wait days before their power was restored?

I imagine such eventualities would have occurred to the government’s planners. Can we please be told what kind of provisions are made for such eventualities?

J. Bartolo

Valletta