Rain storm floods AFM Operations Centre, and shuts down surveillance for a week

Rain flooded the Operations Centre making it impossible to operate from last Monday to Friday afternoon, blacking out all radars and operations coordination in the central Mediterranean region.

Outpost sentinels stationed around the Maltese islands had to do without any radio contact with their base in Luqa, and were ordered to use landline or mobile phones to report any irregular costal sightings to Hal Far Lyster Barracks where a temporary operations centre was set up.

The Operations Centre also houses the Rescue Coordination Centre and the Frontex command for the central Mediterranean. All radars were out of action for almost a week, practically keeping the AFM in the dark on all that was happening around the Maltese islands.

With the support of the Valletta Harbour control tower and the MIA radar, some surveillance coverage was provided to the AFM.

The radar black-out due to the Operations Centre flooding has left many question how the AFM would cope with a natural disaster, and what back-up it has to cope with such a situation.

Damages to equipment are still being quantified as some machines are still not operational.

Meanwhile, the AFM are questioning the work done on the brand new building that houses the Operations Centre.

MaltaToday is informed that last Monday’s rainfall led to water seem through walls and ceilings, and the duty officer had to give the order to all personnel inside the building to evacuate and abandon their posts, as too much water was seeping in and machines were simply switching off.

The situation was returned to normal on Friday afternood after AFM technicians worked relentlessly to put the country's army back into operation.

It remains unknown if rescue operations were diverted to other stations in the Mediterranean until the situation was brought back to normal.