A team has been on the ground assessing the damage in the Santa Cruz area of Santa Elena - this is after Tuesday evening's massive quarry blast. The explosion killed Tiger Aggregates Ltd owner Ronald Sutherland, injured 5 persons and wrecked homes and vehicles. At this point, Belize Road Construction Ltd - who contracted Tiger Aggregates to do the blast, is focused on getting the residents back in the comfort of their homes before Christmas. But there are still many questions as to who granted the company permission to blast in this residential area. Well, very important to note, Inspector of Mines from the Mining Unit, Michelle Alvarez says the unit did not grant any license to blast in this area. In fact, they had no idea this was happening until after the deadly explosion. She says the unit normally advises against blasting especially in residential areas. Alvarez says that she and her team are still conducting their own investigation.
So while the investigation and damage assessments continue, it is also important to look closer at what caused the explosion. As you heard in our story last night, it was caused by some human error. Today at the police press briefing, Retired Lt. Col. James Requena elaborated on these costly on-site mistakes.
Lt. Col. James Requena, Retired BDF
"Tiger Aggregates under the ownership of the late Ronald Sutherland was contracted by Belize Road Construction to do a quarry extraction, materials to be extracted to be used by the company, Mr. Sutherland has 30 years plus experience in doing blasting."
"So he is a certified and qualified experience blaster, along with him there were two certified blasters, Mr. Timoteo Chiac and Mr. Carlitos Alford who were also blasters were licensed and certified to conduct so the incident as seen was a planned and coordinated incident. What transpired is an unfortunate incident. In explosive terms an incident is something that occurred as a consequence of something going wrong. There was an initial partial blast which was rectified by Mr. Sutherland and his team and subsequent the secondary blast was a much larger which projected or flung the stone particles at a further distance than estimated. This may occur for 2 reasons, human error or as a consequence of the type of explosives or the quantity used."
"The issue with this specific incident was that there was an initial partial blast and in order to rectify that you have to recover those items that were still within the quarry in doing so you can either physically remove them or if there is a possibility that they are active, you can add subsequent charge to conduct the second charge. What transpired under the supervision of Mr. Sutherland only he can tell us, we can only assume or speculate that he added a subsequent charge for the secondary blast."
Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"So again it is two angles, human error he should not have been so close and then also he should not have put too much charge.."
Lt. Col. James Requena, Retired BDF
"But the precaution he took was to ensure his assistants and all the residents were outside the area his being there, after 30 years we can't say why he chose to be at that spot at that date."
Supt. Richard Rosado, OC - Cayo Police
"The commissioner of police has put together a inter agency team to investigate what had occurred and upon completion the file will be forwarded to the DPP for advice."
As you heard, the first error was the overpowered charge and of course Sutherland's decision to stay in the danger zone. As it relates to the residents, police say the residents were taken 800 meters away from the blast - that is what prevented more fatalities. And in terms of compensation for the residents the attorney for BRC told us this evening that they are going house to house, getting repair estimates.
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