I refer to the report which appeared on your newspaper of the 29 April regarding an exercise entitled ‘Enemalta fuel leak simulated’. I would like to clarify that the fire hydrant pumps did not develop any ‘real’ technical fault during this exercise. That was a decision set by the Exercise Director to switch off these pumps on purpose to simulate their failure and the consequent deterioration of the emergency situation that was being recreated for this exercise. This led to the implementation of a back-up plan to test the resilience of available resources. In fact, the simulated failure of these pumps confirmed the importance to utilise other resources, such as the fire fighting vessel Garibaldi to ensure the continuity of the intervention process in the unlikely event of a major incident such as this taking place.

Patrick Murgo

Director CPD