This interview was first published in Times of Malta on February 21, 2021

Carmel Pace’s life came crashing down a year ago when he lost his wife and family home to a construction accident. Opening up for the first time since that horrific afternoon, he tells Herman Grech that Malta has to rethink its obsession with greed and construction. 

Just five minutes after Carmel Pace said goodbye to his wife Miriam following their daily post-lunch phone call on March 2, 2020, a colleague casually alerted him to a breaking news item online.

A building had collapsed near Cannon Road, Santa Venera. That’s where the Pace family home was located, next to which heavy machinery had started excavation works.

“I called Miriam’s mobile phone right away. She didn’t pick up. I called the land line. It was dead. My heart missed a beat,” Carmel recalls in a soft-spoken voice and overall calm demeanour which eclipses a year of pain.

Carmel told his manager he needed to leave and check whether all was fine at his home. As he turned into J. Abela Scolaro Street, he saw police at a distance blocking the road as a plume of white dust had barely settled on nearby vehicles.

He was met with an apocalyptic scene: his home had been reduced to rubble, with a couple of rooms remaining exposed to the street after the tremor demolished the outer walls and floors. His wife and 32 years of memories were buried under the debris. It was just 10 hours after his son Matthew had left the same building for a trip to Poland to celebrate his birthday.

Carmel’s voice cracks as he wipes his tears underneath his spectacles, remembering the day that shattered his life.

“I was in so much shock that I recall actually leaping out of my moving vehicle and dashing towards the house until I was stopped by the police.”

As his world came caving in, news footage showed Carmel approaching one of the contractors and exclaiming “can you tell me how I’m going to extract my wife from that rubble?”

“I felt like I was in a trance. My daughter Ivana came to the scene calling ‘where’s mum, where’s mum’? I told her I think she’s underneath the rubble. My son got to know about the incident from news reports and caught a flight back to Malta. The longer I waited for news about Miriam, the more I lost hope. I kept hoping she’d be pulled out alive with possibly some injuries, but sadly it wasn’t the case.”

'I wanted to know all the details'

The dreaded news came at around 10pm when the body of Miriam, 54, was located, just 15 minutes after her son had returned to Malta and rushed to the scene. Her husband took comfort from first-responders who assured him that his wife was killed on the spot and her suffering was not prolonged.

Four people have since been charged with involuntary homicide, but nothing can bring Carmel to terms with the fact his wife was killed through no fault of her own.

A witness testified in court seeing the Pace property collapsing “like a waterfall” while a second tremor left her rooted to the spot. 

“I wanted to know all the details, I wanted to know how she died and what she may have been thinking. Miriam was probably in the washroom when the incident happened. I’m sure that her reaction was to call out to Our Lady for help, as the building shook before it took five seconds to collapse to the ground,” he says.

I called the land line. It was dead. My heart missed a beat

Apart from the clothes he was wearing, Carmel lost everything – the love of his life, his memories, his possessions and happiness.

The only items he managed to rescue were some picture frames, a table, some Melitensia books, and the wedding dress Miriam wore for her daughter’s wedding. All other valuables were gone, including jewellery, his wife’s rings, and a ring his father had given him just a week before the incident.

A sense of foreboding

Fate was on his son’s side. Had he not been abroad that afternoon, he could have been killed too – a boulder had crushed his study desk.

It was the culmination of a nightmare which began in July 2019 when a neighbour informed the Paces that a large garden adjacent to the house they had bought in 1984 was slated for development.

Realising that the neighbouring area was going to change and fearing the inconvenience and potential danger of excavations, the Paces reluctantly put their property on the market. But months later they decided to stay put in the house they had called home since they got married in 1988.

The irony is that there had been a deep sense of foreboding before March 2.

“Bdejna jekk Alla jrid. Uff!” [‘They’ve started, God help us’] Miriam had texted her husband on the first day that works began in February 2020, attaching a picture of an excavator digging close by.

“Miriam was very anxious and scared. She was resigned to living with it until the works were completed,” he said.

As days went by and works progressed, her anxiety grew.

Some days after construction works kicked off, a dividing wall adjoining a garage behind their home collapsed when the wall surrounding the building site, once a large well-tended garden with many fruit trees, was pulled down.

That incident had terrified Miriam, who later told her husband how she had experienced what seemed “like an earthquake,” and, together with a neighbour, had rushed out of her home to confront the workmen next door. 

During a meeting on February 24, they had complained about the tremors caused by the building works and voiced concern about excavations. But the works went on until that fateful afternoon.

After the incident, Carmel and his son moved into his daughter’s house, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, before being allocated alternative premises in Żebbuġ. The father of two rerouted his grief into trekking as a protest was sparked against an industry many feel is out of control.

'It's a free-for-all'

A year on from the incident, Carmel fears that like many other incidents, his personal tragedy risks being destined to an inconvenient footnote and forgotten. He is upset that the prime minister remains reluctant to give the go-ahead to a public inquiry into the incident and wonders why the experts’ report was only published last month.

“I’m not calling for the death penalty. I just want to know whether there were any shortcomings from the institutions. Is that too much to ask?”

In a country where construction is rampant and incidents way too common, Carmel finds it impossible to keep his mind distracted away from the memories of that dark March afternoon.

“This infatuation with building every nook and cranny has to stop. It’s a free-for-all with the overarching interest to make a quick buck come what may. The disrespect towards our neighbours is incredible. It’s not right that we see country lanes being tarmacked to make way for cars, that access to the countryside is being blocked.”

Switching on his mobile phone to reveal a wallpaper image of him embracing Miriam, Carmel says he has tried his utmost to start rebuilding his life in the last year but has found it well nigh impossible.

When Carmel drives past Cannon Road he does his best to keep focused on the road ahead, and not look sideways, lest the memories come back to haunt him. His son avoids driving through the area altogether.

His eyes well up again as he recalls how the couple, who both served as Cana counsellors, had been preparing their bucket list of travels before destiny took a terrible turn.

Does he think time will eventually heal?

His answer sums up a shattered soul: “No, it won’t. I’ve never been the type who merely existed. I’ve lived life, I’m very social and I love company. But my heart is totally shattered without Miriam.

“Miriam was my love, my life, my best friend, my adviser, my problem solver, she had a knack with our children. My dad, who only died last month, used to tell me she’s his best friend. She was everything I could ever have wished for. If I’m reincarnated, it’s Miriam I want to meet and be with again.”