It was reported in a section of the press that Mepa is considering plans to build tunnels to channel off flood waters caused by rain. One of the localities mentioned is Zebbug and the area of Tal-Grazzja has been singled out as a flood area. No mention has been made of Vassalli Street and Parish Street (the lower part) and of other streets. These new areas only started to flood after the roads in the area were re-surfaced some years back and these two roads were ‘designated’ as a water-course for a catchment area extending to the area of the local playing-field and beyond. I even recorded on film the flooding of Parish Street during the first downpour in the month of June, right after the roadwork had been completed. I handed copies of the film to the relevant (un)concerned people.

Now the idea of tunnels to channel off the water has been suggested. I first mooted this idea to the architect in charge of the work , after the first floods occurred, and after efforts to alleviate the problem failed.

The tunnels in Zebbug are already there. Provided the incline of the surface under which they were first dug is followed, the tunnels will lead directly from the Tal-Grazzja area and Parish Square and from other areas directly to the bottom part of Siggiewi Street, Dun Karm Psaila Street, Triq L-Innu Malti, in short, to the limits of Wied Qirda, which is a natural waterway.

These tunnels are the underground air raid shelters dug during WWII. These consisted of rock-cut tunnels, c.11-12 metres, that ran underneath the roads of the village. These shelters were originally dug in small clusters and had two to five entrances. During the years of the Cold War, in the fifties, the British, who still occupied Malta, feared that the islands would be very probable prime victims of nuclear fallout following a nuclear attack on targets (including the American Sixth Fleet and Nato ships) in the western Mediterranean because of the prevalent winds. Consequently, and considering the probable influx of evacuees from the Port area inland, localities like Zebbug were in a way prepared for such an eventual increase in population. The Civil Defence Corps (defunct since 1971) were commissioned to connect these clusters into one whole underground tunnel network running under the entire locality, as it existed then.

I was still a small boy then, but I still remember the workmen knocking on our doors to notify us that an explosion was imminent. The tunnels were literally blasted out of the living rock by gelignite. I also remember the distinctive smell of the gelignite coming out from the entrances after the blasting. Other memories include the engineers, who turned up periodically in teams in chauffer-driven cars between blasts to lay out the orientation and hand out the explosives to the workers; the workers carrying up on their shoulders basket-load after basket-load of debris; the wanderings down there by us kids lighting our way with candles and battery torches, the legends (like the dead bodies hidden down there) that were meant to frighten us away but which in fact made us more curious; the constant complaints by residents about the walls of their well being cracked; the requisition by the government of the private cubicles dug at the side of the tunnels.

The tunnels were truly an engineering feat then, running under the roads of the village to avoid encroaching on private property. Some years ago, through their grandchildren, I asked two of the surviving officers from the Civil Defence Corps regarding the location of the plans and archives pertaining to these shelters and their extensions and inter-connection. One of them, Mr R. Padovani, had been transferred to another government department long before the corps was disbanded. The other, Mr Bartolo Parnis, who was there till the end, sent me information that the Civil Defence Corps documentation and archives had been deposited at the National Archives, if my memory serves me right, while some were even at the National Library.

I am sure that these existing tunnels will help save hundreds of thousands of euros and provide a fast solution to flooding problems as large drainpipes to take the water from strategically well-placed culverts that could be laid down there. But then again, the prospect of being contracted to dig new, extra expensive tunnels is already whetting the appetite of somebody’s cronies. We do live in such a place.

Frank Galea

ZEBBUG