Sure as hell the fuel will move!

| Friday September 17, 2010 00:00

You can almost see it in the eye of your mind: It's midday.  The temperature hovers around 40 degrees Celsius.  People are going about their business.  An explosion.  A ball of fire from the sky.  A gigantic lid resembling an unidentified flying object (UFO) whooshes over rooftops and lands at the Village. 

Armageddon is the last thought on the minds of several religiously-inclined mortals as their petrol drenched bodies go up in scampering little balls of fire.  For miles around, people are shaken out of their chairs as the explosion sends tremors across the land.

One of the huge fuel storage tanks at the Gaborone West Industrial Estate along Haile Selassie Road has exploded.  The fire quickly spreads to the other containers. Hundreds of thousands of litres of petroleum - diesel and paraffin - spew out of the tanks, flooding the streets of old Naledi, Bontleng, White City, Gaborone West and the Gaborone Bus and Taxi ranks.

Small tributaries around the explosion area flow every direction.  The city is covered with a massive dark plume of smoke.  Traffic comes to a standstill as anxious motorists contemplate diverse possibilities: A spark here, maybe from a vehicle hitting a speed hump, a cigarette butt carelessly thrown out of the window could send a convoy of several hundred vehicles up in smoke.  Entire buildings collapse under the transferred inferno from the burning tanks.  A powerful heat wave radiates several kilometres from the source of the hell.

There is talk of people developing breathing problems and asthmatics choking due to the noxious gases from the dense cloud.  Many die. The sound of moaning fills the air.  The sick and dying cover hospital floors, public and private.  Entire families are wiped out.  Children are orphaned.  Businesses, entire life savings go up in smoke as the fire licks surrounding buildings.  The Department of Surveys, the Botswana Housing Corporation, Water Utilities Corporation, Barclays Bank, Standard Bank, Nashua, FNB, State House and the Gaborone Main Mall are all consumed as the fire besieges the buildings.

In homes, cats and dogs take off, terrified beyond words by exploding gas canisters and flying tanks.  Doctors, nurses and paramedics are overwhelmed.  Other rescue workers are at a loss.  It has been several days now, and the fire is not abating.  There are not enough fire engines to fight the blaze.  Thousands are evacuated to far away Jwaneng and Letlhakeng.

As rain clouds gather in the southwest, there is talk of acid rain from the carbon dioxide and sulphur that impregnate the atmosphere.  The rain is followed by a famine in the Greater Gaborone metropolis because of total crop failure.  With the poisons slowly sipping into the soil, animal and plant life will continue to die for many years to come.  Ever ready to the rescue, the Americans, the British and the neighbourly South Africans dispatch their military personnel to help.  Gaborone is a veritable war zone.  It will be many years before normalcy returns.

This is what the city of Gaborone is sitting on.  For years, safety experts and the media have warned the government about the potential danger posed by these storage tanks in a densely populated built up area.  However, the matter does not seem to occupy government's priority list.

According to the Communications Officer at the Department of Energy Affairs, Alice Mmolawa, the fuel storage tanks are owned by different organisations in the oil industry, among them the government.  'The government tanks were built in 1979 and commissioned in 1981,' she says in a written response to Mmegi questions.  'Government is aware that today the location of the tanks is unsuitable due to the many developments that have taken place in that area.'

Mmolawa says the government has already taken the decision to relocate the tanks 'once construction and operation of the proposed bulk fuel supply terminal is accomplished at Tshele Hills where the development of a new larger storage terminal is already underway. The government has also made provision for more such facilities in other parts of the country.

However, she downplays the possibility of a catastrophe should there be a fire outbreak at the Gaborone West facility.  At all times, Mmolawa says, the government takes all aspects of human safety seriously.  For that reason, stringent international safety standards are maintained at the (Gaborone West) depot at all times,' she says.