Cyprus-Forum.com

[Pyrpolizer]

The 2 twins that got killed were on communication with their families until the very last minutes. Their uncle said they were telling their parents that "strange things happen here, we hear small explosions everywhere inside the containers"

May all rest in peace and my condolences to their families, even if the whole thing was a sabotage, it still is a matter of extreme negligence and all those responsible must pay, not by just resigning or losing their jobs but with imprisonment.

[Piratis]

If you follow the events since 2009 it is quite obvious what happened.

The Cyprus government didn't want to get involved with this story in the first place, and it did everything it could to stay out of it. But the Americans were putting tons of pressure on the government to take the shipment, while at the same time the Syrians were demanding to let the cargo reach its destination.

RoC found itself in the middle of this and it tried to find a "compromise solution" that would satisfy all foreigners even though it was against the interests of the Cypriot people (reminds you of something?). Apparently this compromise was to confiscate the cargo, as the Americans demanded, but instead of destroying it to store it somewhere so as soon as the embargo was over the shipment could be quickly loaded back on the ship and send to Syria (which is why a nautical base was chosen).

Some say that the Americans and British offered to safely dispose the munition. Even if this is true, what the Americans and British should have done is to take the cargo in one of their own bases in the area from 2009 and take the full responsibility for stopping the cargo reach Syria. Once Cyprus was forced to take the munitions it would be very hard for our government to approve the destruction of what is essentially Syrian property. Doing so would create a diplomatic incident between Cyprus and Syria and turn the Syrians, the Iranians and possibly other Arab countries against Cyprus.

Our government made the huge mistake of trying to keep all foreigners happy, and the Cypriot people paid the price in the end. Christofias should resign and let somebody who has the balls to do what is right for Cyprus, even if that would mean dissatisfying some foreigners, take the presidency. It is obvious that this "compromise solutions" can not work. Either the Government should have gone all the way with the Americans, including allowing them to destroy the contents of the cargo (if such offer was indeed made, haven't seen a proof yet), or they should have just let the shipment continue to Syria and refuse to get involved. Or at least they should have stored this cargo safely themselves, something which apparently they didn't have the abilities to do.

[Piratis]

Like I said don't think they are telling the truth. As for the Power station that was the NEW power station on the process of GETTING BUILT. How the hell that new power station that was UNDER CONSTRUCTION was providing us 40% of the power I really don't know!

What was new was just some additional generators that they installed recently, at the cost of 500 million.

[DT.]

... and may incompetent, self-serving, place-men politicians burn in Hell.

this thing doesnt make sense, dont be too surprised if the explosion was sabotage....who would store a shipload of explosives next to a power plant, noone....my hunch is that this whole thing is sabotage and the ROC is covering it up....

This makes perfect sense. a friend of mine visited the base 2 weeks ago to see old mates and the containers were there. Who would store explosives next to a plant? Christofias, his signature is on the document.

We couldn't piss off the Syrians. we wanted to impress the UN and at the same time we had to obey the Americans while showing some signs of flip flop soveriegnty and rejecting any help from them. What do we do when its 40 degrees and mini epxlosions can be heard from inside the containers? We get a couple of 18 year olds to spray the (metal) containers with water to cool them down. Hands up how many know if metal is a good conductor of heat.

Christofias has tipped this country over.

[bill cobbett]

Whose brain-child was it to store the containers where they did? Why did not the USA take the contraband (or the eu) and just left t iny Cyprus to deal with this 'hot potato'. No pun intended. I am fucking annoyed.

Me too. What on earth were the authorities doing with such a potentially dangerous cargo sitting out in the open next to a power station? Is it true that they declined offers of international help? Who declined such an offer and on what grounds? I fear this has the making of an enormous scandal. It's quite right that the Defence Minister and head of the army have resigned. What was Christofias' role in any of this?

One thing comes to mind is someone trying to curry favour with Syria -for the obvious reasons. I still suspect sabotage after the shipment was on the agenda again. Did some entity try ensure the shipment never reached its original destinstion? Perhaps a bit far fetched, but perhaps Syria wanted to embarass the RoC? Far fetched again, any plausible ideas? Excluding a real probable accident?

I was watching the news from early morning.Somehow i am very suspicious something ain't right.
First of all at 2.30-3.00 something happened at the Power station and the Engineers that were on night shift they all got injured and got carried to the hospital. These people were actually the first casualties.Immediately after that the power station stopped working! THIS NEWS was totally silenced later on, and all media kept on repeating us of what happened at the naval base 3 hours later!

So at 5.45 we had the explosion of the 98 seacontainers with ammunition at the naval base, about 1 km away.
Those 98 pieces were packed in stacks of 3, so bottom stack had 30 another 30 on top and then another 30. The sun hits each one at only one of their 4 major sides. And what kind of sun heat is there at 6 in the morning?
Furthermore all those 98 containers were on an asphalted basement, almost 50 meters away from any dried low grass.

There was indeed a fire of low dry grass at the nearby fields (very strange --> at 3-4 after midnight!). Was that fire that big to cause an explosion from a distance? Obviously not but it constituted a danger.That's why the commander of the base got in, and ordered the spreading of water on the containers. Alas at 5.45 the containers exploded killing and injuring so many people including the commander of the base.

At 11 o clock the party leaders had a meeting and made statements. One of them (Omerou) said yes the containers had ammunition inside but no ammunition can ever explode without striking a detonator.That statement was the second one that got totally silenced afterwards.
At some time later they announced they will be getting experts from Greece to investigate how the tragedy happened, also caring at the same time to announce that "from first glance the possibility of a sabotage is excluded"

And as if the whole "blurring" was not enough we had countless a rumors telling us that 2 containers have got swallowed from the pressure inside the last few weeks( !!!)- what a stupid argument... all sea-containers have 2 ventilation rails on the sides near the doors-hence they cannot swallow damn it, and then the most funny one:One week ago, they said they had a small explossion inside the containers that they managed

At about the same time (11.30) the Chief Engineer of the power station said to the media that they had a lot of damage from the blast but he cannot tell if there is any damage to the generators themselves. He said they will check each one (of the 10? generators) in the next few days before they make a final anouncement.
This statement was the 3rd one to be totally silenced later on, and all we were hearing afterwards was that the power station got fully destroyed.

Like I said don't think they are telling the truth. As for the Power station that was the NEW power station on the process of GETTING BUILT. How the hell that new power station that was UNDER CONSTRUCTION was providing us 40% of the power I really don't know!

Pyro....Sorry just to keep these revelations going...

In a sentence you're saying the problem started in the power station in the early hours, a problem big enough to cause injury to power station staff and lead to a brush-fire which was to spread to the containers. Correct????

[kurupetos]

Like I said don't think they are telling the truth. As for the Power station that was the NEW power station on the process of GETTING BUILT. How the hell that new power station that was UNDER CONSTRUCTION was providing us 40% of the power I really don't know!

What was new was just some additional generators that they installed recently, at the cost of 500 million.

What was new was the naval base. The power station is quite old.

[wyoming cowboy]

Whose brain-child was it to store the containers where they did? Why did not the USA take the contraband (or the eu) and just left t iny Cyprus to deal with this 'hot potato'. No pun intended. I am fucking annoyed.

Me too. What on earth were the authorities doing with such a potentially dangerous cargo sitting out in the open next to a power station? Is it true that they declined offers of international help? Who declined such an offer and on what grounds? I fear this has the making of an enormous scandal. It's quite right that the Defence Minister and head of the army have resigned. What was Christofias' role in any of this?

One thing comes to mind is someone trying to curry favour with Syria -for the obvious reasons. I still suspect sabotage after the shipment was on the agenda again. Did some entity try ensure the shipment never reached its original destinstion? Perhaps a bit far fetched, but perhaps Syria wanted to embarass the RoC? Far fetched again, any plausible ideas? Excluding a real probable accident?

I was watching the news from early morning.Somehow i am very suspicious something ain't right.
First of all at 2.30-3.00 something happened at the Power station and the Engineers that were on night shift they all got injured and got carried to the hospital. These people were actually the first casualties.Immediately after that the power station stopped working! THIS NEWS was totally silenced later on, and all media kept on repeating us of what happened at the naval base 3 hours later!

So at 5.45 we had the explosion of the 98 seacontainers with ammunition at the naval base, about 1 km away.
Those 98 pieces were packed in stacks of 3, so bottom stack had 30 another 30 on top and then another 30. The sun hits each one at only one of their 4 major sides. And what kind of sun heat is there at 6 in the morning?
Furthermore all those 98 containers were on an asphalted basement, almost 50 meters away from any dried low grass.

There was indeed a fire of low dry grass at the nearby fields (very strange --> at 3-4 after midnight!). Was that fire that big to cause an explosion from a distance? Obviously not but it constituted a danger.That's why the commander of the base got in, and ordered the spreading of water on the containers. Alas at 5.45 the containers exploded killing and injuring so many people including the commander of the base.

At 11 o clock the party leaders had a meeting and made statements. One of them (Omerou) said yes the containers had ammunition inside but no ammunition can ever explode without striking a detonator.That statement was the second one that got totally silenced afterwards.
At some time later they announced they will be getting experts from Greece to investigate how the tragedy happened, also caring at the same time to announce that "from first glance the possibility of a sabotage is excluded"

And as if the whole "blurring" was not enough we had countless a rumors telling us that 2 containers have got swallowed from the pressure inside the last few weeks( !!!)- what a stupid argument... all sea-containers have 2 ventilation rails on the sides near the doors-hence they cannot swallow damn it, and then the most funny one:One week ago, they said they had a small explossion inside the containers that they managed

At about the same time (11.30) the Chief Engineer of the power station said to the media that they had a lot of damage from the blast but he cannot tell if there is any damage to the generators themselves. He said they will check each one (of the 10? generators) in the next few days before they make a final anouncement.
This statement was the 3rd one to be totally silenced later on, and all we were hearing afterwards was that the power station got fully destroyed.

Like I said don't think they are telling the truth. As for the Power station that was the NEW power station on the process of GETTING BUILT. How the hell that new power station that was UNDER CONSTRUCTION was providing us 40% of the power I really don't know!

Pyrpo are you sure the power plant was off or being renovated because ive just talked to people in cyprus and they say there is no electricity and possibly no water because of this, the water plants desalination plants are not working either.

[Sotos]

The now resigned defense minister was saying in 2009 that what was in the containers was safe and that they could even be stored in residential areas without any risk!!!!! See the video (Greek language): http://www.sigmalive.com/news/400952

[Mikiko]

He did not know what materials were inside how did he know if they were not dangerous? .Politis has published also the officer in charge has warned them many times of the danger and the risk of leaving these materials outside but as expected he has been ignored and thats the reason of the resignations that followed ! And dont forget the temperatures that exist now in Cyprus !

[Lit]

Greece sending generators after power plant destroyed by blast
FAMAGUSTA GAZETTE
• Mon, Jul 11, 2011
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Antonis Paschalides has announced that two 60MW generators would be arriving in Cyprus the soonest possible from Greece, to enhance the power production system, after a deadly explosion at the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base destroyed the nearby Vassiliko power station with its shock wave.
Speaking after a meeting of the energy sector crisis management team, Paschalides said that his Ministry was in contact with the Greek Government and already two 60MW generators had been earmarked for Cyprus.
Paschalides said the Electricity Authority of Cyprus would complete a timetable by tomorrow for the desalination plants, so that there is a reduced production meaning less consumption of electricity.
He added that a decree would be issued so that all generators in Cyprus are used to boost the power supply.

http://famagusta-gazette.com/greece-sen ... 400-69.htm