An explosion lasts seconds. Its consequences can linger for months, years, and sometimes much longer.

More than two months have passed since the explosion at a pyrotechnics facility in Salini, an incident which affected several farms, properties and establishments in the surrounding area.

Among those was a nearby bird park, whose owner has spoken to The Malta Independent on Sunday about the difficult process of recovering from the destruction.

His experience is just one of many resulting from that day, but it provides a striking illustration of how the impact of a serious accident extends well beyond the moment of the blast itself.

For the bird park, the damage was extensive. Infrastructure built up over decades was destroyed, animals were killed or injured and an entire breeding season was disrupted.

Even now, some of the surviving animals remain frightened by sudden noises and wary of the people who care for them.

There have also been concerns over contamination, while the park remains closed to visitors. Yet its running costs have not disappeared.

Animals still need to be fed and cared for, damaged facilities need to be repaired and the work of rebuilding continues without the income normally generated through visitors.

Other establishments and individuals affected by the explosion will have their own stories, their own losses and their own challenges in returning to normality.

Some damage can be quantified relatively easily in terms of repairs or replacement costs. Other consequences, whether emotional, environmental or related to livelihoods, are much more difficult to measure.

That is precisely why incidents of this scale cannot be viewed solely through the immediate aftermath.

When an explosion occurs, attention understandably focuses on the emergency response, the injured, the visible destruction and the investigation into what happened.

But once the debris is cleared and public attention moves elsewhere, those affected are left dealing with consequences which are often far less visible.

What happened at the bird park is significant because it offers one glimpse into what recovery from such an incident actually involves.

Others in the surrounding area suffered damage and disruption of their own, and each will have faced different consequences. Some can be measured in repair bills and damaged property. Others, as the experience of the bird park shows, are far harder to quantify.

There is something particularly striking in Mallia's reflection that what took him 30 years to build was lost in a second. Damaged structures can eventually be repaired and the park can reopen, but rebuilding everything that existed before the explosion is another matter entirely.

The animals themselves cannot understand what happened. The fact that some remain frightened by sudden noises weeks later shows how an event which has disappeared from the headlines can remain very real for those who experienced it.

Eventually, all will return to normal. Properties will be repaired, businesses will recover and routines will resume.

But the experiences of the bird park and the many others affected show that clearing the physical damage is only one part of recovery.

The smoke may have cleared; rebuilding what was lost will take considerably longer.