A disaster response exercise has been held by Enemed at the 31st March installation in Birzebbuga, testing the response of its staff, the police, rescue workers and personnel from other entities.

The exercise began on Wednesday. Enemed’s health and safety section and the Civil Protection Department planned the exercise, which involved a situation where four employees were trapped by a blaze in a fuel storage tank.

About 60 Enemed employees based at the installation and the nearby Administrative Buildings participated in the exercise.

As part of the exercise, all fuel loading and unloading operations were interrupted whilst workers were evacuated

Workers trained in emergency response deployed the fire fighting system until a few minutes later the Civil Protection Department firefighters arrived on site and took control of the operation to ‘extinguish the fire’ and ‘rescue the injured’ employees.

Residents and workers living or working in the area of the installation were informed about the exercise in advance, to avoid unnecessary alarm.