A goat was yesterday morning pulled out alive from the remains of a room in a field destroyed by the huge fireworks explosion in Gudja late Sunday afternoon.

“We realised that, in the rubble of this collapsed room, something was still alive, something had survived. The goat had somehow made it through the night despite this tremendous explosion,” farmer Charles Catania told the Times of Malta moments after pulling it from the debris.

As his son loaded the goat on to the back of his truck to house it at a friend’s farm, Mr Catania said he had decided to rename the animal Lucky.

“You’d have to be pretty lucky to survive something like that, I tell you,” he said.

I was scared it would explode, and sure enough, it did

Debris of all sorts was scattered across Mr Catania’s field in the rural outskirts of Gudja, the results of Sunday’s explosion after manufactured fireworks stored in a container went off for some reason.

Mr Catania said he shared his field with some enthusiasts, who used it  from August to October to let off aerial fireworks during three feasts. Large amounts of the materials used to make fireworks were also stored in the field, despite his concerns on grounds of safety.

“I was scared it would explode and, sure enough, it did,” he said, adding that it was lucky no people had been injured or died.

The blast was so powerful it completely destroyed several of the enthusiasts’ cars parked in the field and almost entirely flattened the small building that housed several of Mr Catania’s animals.

As piles of hay still smouldered in what had once been the north-western corner of the structure, Mr Catania pointed to the opposite one, where a dead animal's head could be seen beneath the rubble. “That sheep was less fortunate,” Mr Catania said.

On the other end was a mess of wire and broken cages which once housed rabbits.