I will never forget the night of February 3, 1995, when the tanker Um El Faroud blew up. It was our wedding anniversary but my wife was ill and we did not go out.

I was almost asleep when the phone on the bedside table rang at about 11pm.

Freddie Busuttil, the Times of Malta night editor that day, was on the other end of the line. He said Anthony Montanaro – a former editor of The Sunday Times of Malta – (God bless his soul) had phoned to say that something major had apparently happened at the dockyard. A quick phone call to the police elicited a vague reply that something was indeed happening.

By the time I got dressed, Freddie was on the phone again, saying several people had phoned to say they had heard an explosion.

The timing could not have been worse, with the newspaper about to go to bed. Freddie said he would hold it for as long as he could.

I drove as fast as I could to the dockyard and soon linked up with our photographer, Alfred Giglio.

We went to Għajn Dwieli Gate but dockyard security would not let us in, or tell us anything. We could see ambulances and fire engines race past and then some ministerial cars. Nationalist Cabinet ministers and the prime minister himself had not been to the Labour-dominated dockyard until that time.

We went to Cospicua gate near Gavinu Gulia Square. Again, no entry, but a crowd of people had gathered. Some women were crying, asking anyone who came out about their husbands. By speaking to them one could start to piece together what happened.

On the photographer’s suggestion, we went to Senglea, on top of the bastion overlooking the dock where the blast had taken place. There were quite a number of onlookers but Alfred, determined to get his picture despite the darkness, managed to slowly move forward, right hand outstretched holding the camera as near to the ‘lip’ of the bastion as possible while I held one of his feet.

Alfred was not known as a man who took risks but he certainly took one that night. It was a steely determination he later made light of – until he realised that he had snagged and torn his beautify tan leather jacket on a lattice steel fence which, if I remember well, separated that part of the bastion from Senglea school.

The front page of the Times of Malta reporting on the Um El Faroud tragedy.

Back down from the bastion wall, Alfred dashed off to Valletta to print his photos and I went back to Għajn Dwieli.

A gaggle of reporters and photographers had gathered but no one was being let in. A Super One reporter was, however, allowed in through Cospicua Gate.

A bar at the bottom of the hill near the main gate was still open. We had no mobile phones at the time but this bar had an old, wall mounted phone, which people could use by inserting coins. I phoned Victor Aquilina, the editor, telling him what I knew so far, so he could ‘storify’.

The barman told me he was about to close and I pleaded with him to stay on for a bit longer so that I could use the phone. Victor was also holding the front page.

By 2am, I still had nothing officially confirmed – only what we were told by the crowd at Gavinu Gulia Square and some visibly distressed workers who spoke to us as they came out of the ‘yard.

The ministerial cars were coming out by now. I glimpsed Louis Galea’s large Volvo approaching the gate and, on the spur of the moment, stood in the middle of the road as it drove out – nothing heroic mind you, it was driving slowly.

The car stopped and the minister kindly came out to speak to us. He told us that seven workers had been killed and an exercise was under way to account for all the workers.

I dashed back to the bar – thankfully still open – and phoned in the story.

The Times of Malta was the only paper to report by dawn that seven people had died. Another two workers later died in hospital.

And, despite the darkness and the distance, Alfred had managed to get his picture – the Libyan tanker shown with its deck blown upwards midship by the force of the explosion.

The tragedy was one of Malta’s biggest since the war – caused by an accumulation of gas that exploded below the main deck of the tanker.

I will forever remember the distressed faces of the women in Gavinu Gulia Square waiting for news as I will also remember that day as one of Alfred finest moments.

Sadly, he departed this life a few years later through natural causes but while on duty.