At Waldhof in Luxembourg: Is the army ammunition depot secure enough?
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At Waldhof in LuxembourgIs the army ammunition depot safe enough?
LUXEMBOURG – The Minister of Defense has indicated that the Luxembourg army’s ammunition depot in Waldhof will be refurbished to improve security.
In early August, a explosion in an ammunition depot in Berlin, reinforced a gigantic fire in the Grunewald forest. A blaze that firefighters took several days to control. In a parliamentary question, the pirate deputies Sven Clement and Marc Goergen, worried that such a situation could happen in Luxembourg, also plagued by drought.
In his response, Defense Minister François Bausch tried to reassure the deputies. “The ammunition is supplied in regulated packaging and very strict security measures are applied” concerning the material stored at Waldhof. He recalls that the standards followed are those of NATO, and that all the managers of the site have been trained.
400,000 liters of water
The minister indicated that the army was currently working on a redevelopment of the site in collaboration with the Public Works Administration, and that a bill would be tabled in the Chamber by the end of the legislature. “Security measures will be further strengthened.” Measures which already consist of the presence of firewalls and merlons (work aimed at containing projections) all around the hangars. All reinforced with fire extinguishers and other systems, such as fire hooks or even sandboxes, shovels and buckets.
Finally, if the CGDIS were to intervene in the event of a fire, the firefighters could throw 400,000 liters of water, distributed in four underground basins.
It should be remembered that the ammunition depot has already been the scene of an explosion (without fire): in February 2019, two non-commissioned officers of the Luxembourg army demining service (SEDAL) had been killed in the explosion of a 48 kg artillery shell dating from the Second World War.
(Mc)