Europe gives a 3.1 million grant to help Albania reconstruct destroyed blast area

TIRANA, March 9 – The European Union gave 3.1 million Euros to Albanian authorities to reconstruct the destroyed area of last year’s series of deadly blasts of an ammunition disposal factory that killed 26 and injured some 300 people.
The project supports the revitalization and the reconstitution of normalcy in the village of G쳤ec, devastated last March by the explosion in an arms dismantling plant.
The EU money would fund reconstruction of the infrastructure, a new school, and water supply and sewerage systems, according to a statement Monday from the European Commission office in Tirana.
First, interventions will be made in infrastructure. Specifically, the main road as well as the internal roads of the Marqinet village and the Llanaj neighborhood will be fully reconstructed. Second, a new school that will include a sport yard and a gymnastic training building will be constructed in order to replace the old existing one.
Third, the water supply in the village will improve considerably. Measures will be taken for safe and affordable drinking water for the inhabitants. Furthermore, adequate sanitation infrastructure will be put in place by reconstructing the water supply system and sewerage system of the Marqinet village and the Llanaj neighborhood.
Fourth, the project activities have been designed in a way that is sensitive to the environment. Therefore, issues such as pollution control, water supply protection as well as environmental monitoring in the areas affected by the explosion will be significant parts of the project.
“Pollution control, water supply protection as well as environmental monitoring in the areas affected by the explosion will be significant parts of the project,” the statement said.
Twenty-eight Defense Ministry and army officials, including former minister and army chief-of-staff, and also managers of the private disposal company have been accused of corruption and also, some of them, of murder.
In last year’s March 15 disaster, a series of explosions at an ammunition disposal factory in Gerdec killed 26 people, injured 302 and destroyed or damaged some 5,500 houses.
About 100,000 tons of excess ammunition, mostly Russian and Chinese artillery shells made in the 1960s or earlier, are stored in former army depots across Albania.