The explosion ripped through the pyrotechnics factory in the quiet Gozo countryside at lunchtime on Tuesday. The sound was heard miles away. By the time emergency services arrived, a plume of smoke had replaced the building. Three workers are dead, two more are missing. British bomb disposal experts have been called in to assist the Maltese police. It is a tragedy, yes. But in Malta, it is also a cultural earthquake.
Fireworks are not a hobby in this island nation. They are a religion. Every village festa, every saint’s day, every summer evening is punctuated by deafening bangs and shimmering colours. The factories where these explosives are made are often family-run, passed down through generations. They are also unregulated in ways that would make a British safety inspector weep. The last major accident was in 2019, when a factory in Mqabba killed five. Before that, 2015, seven dead. The pattern is familiar: homemade ingredients, cramped conditions, one spark.
But why do the Maltese persist? I put this question to Joseph, a retired fireworks maker from Rabat, over the phone. He laughed, a dry, sad sound. “You British have your football. We have our powder.” He told me about the competition between villages, the secret recipes for “catherine wheels” and “silver rain,” the pride of seeing your shells burst above the parish church. “It is art,” he said. “Dangerous art.”
The arrival of UK bomb disposal experts is a poignant detail. They are here to help, but they cannot understand what they are dealing with. For a Maltese fireworks maker, the work is not a job. It is an obsession. The men who died on Tuesday knew the risks. They all do. Yet the factory will be rebuilt. The festas will go on. The question is whether the government can, or will, impose the kind of safety culture that would change the national character.
I spoke with a woman named Maria, whose uncle died in the 2015 blast. “They talk about safety after every accident,” she said wearily. “Then nothing happens. The police say they will inspect. The politicians say they will legislate. But the factories are too important. They say we need the tourism, the tradition.” Her voice cracked. “My uncle is dead for tourism.”
There is a class dynamic here, too. The fireworks makers are predominantly working class, often farmers or labourers supplementing their income. The officials who regulate them sit in air-conditioned offices in Valletta. The gap between law and reality is as wide as the Mediterranean. When I asked a government spokesman whether the UK experts would lead to new laws, he gave a careful answer: “We will review all recommendations.”
Meanwhile, on Gozo, the families of the dead wait for news. They are not naive. They knew the risks. But they believed in the beauty of their work. That belief is harder to sustain when the only thing left of your father is a charred wall and a pile of dust. The British experts will do their job. They will search for causes, for clues, for regulations. But the cultural shift that might save lives will have to come from within. And that, in Malta, is the hardest explosion to contain.
