Gërdec
Encyclopedia
Gërdec is a village in Albania
, 11 kilometers north-west of the capital Tirana
, part of the municipality Vorë
. It was the site of the explosions
at a military base on 15 March 2008, causing the deaths of more than 27 people and injuring over 100.
Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu resigned, and the press reported many irregularities at the blast site, operated by an Albanian company that deactivated the country's aging ammunition and then sold it for scrap.
One factor of the event not made public yet is an error made by engineers who designed the machinery the demilitarisation company and associates employed on the project used. A fundamental design assumption made early in the design process rendered the basic machinery potentially lethal. Researchers and designers of the ammunition disposal kilns assumed the combustible compounds within the ammunition would burn away at 350 degrees Celsius. Documents available from the US military state, and thermochemical and thermodynamic calculations will verify, the combustible compounds within the ammunition being disposed of at Gerdec burn to give out a heat amounting to 4500 degrees Celsius. Such an energy which would, without further sufficient and adequate designed machine components, lead to vaporization and explosion of the machines used to dispose of the ammunition dumps.
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, 11 kilometers north-west of the capital Tirana
Tirana
Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over...
, part of the municipality Vorë
Vorë
Vorë or Vora is a municipality in Tirana District, Tirana County in Albania.While small, it is located at a major road junction and railway junction.-References:...
. It was the site of the explosions
2008 Gërdec explosions
The 2008 Gërdec explosions occurred at approximately noon local time on Saturday 15 March 2008 at an ex-military ammunition depot in the village of Gërdec in the Vorë Municipality, Albania . The explosions could be heard in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, away.A large fire caused a series of...
at a military base on 15 March 2008, causing the deaths of more than 27 people and injuring over 100.
Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu resigned, and the press reported many irregularities at the blast site, operated by an Albanian company that deactivated the country's aging ammunition and then sold it for scrap.
One factor of the event not made public yet is an error made by engineers who designed the machinery the demilitarisation company and associates employed on the project used. A fundamental design assumption made early in the design process rendered the basic machinery potentially lethal. Researchers and designers of the ammunition disposal kilns assumed the combustible compounds within the ammunition would burn away at 350 degrees Celsius. Documents available from the US military state, and thermochemical and thermodynamic calculations will verify, the combustible compounds within the ammunition being disposed of at Gerdec burn to give out a heat amounting to 4500 degrees Celsius. Such an energy which would, without further sufficient and adequate designed machine components, lead to vaporization and explosion of the machines used to dispose of the ammunition dumps.