The Porto Palermo tunnel engineer answers Blendi Fevziu: Nothing you said is true
2024-09-04 21:30:07
TiranaPost
Engineer Qemal Zyfi, has appeared in an interview for dreno.net with journalist Rudina Xhunga to take a stand regarding an opinion of journalist Blendi Fevziu, who has recently been quite active in advertising tourist sites, hotels, destinations, food, and a little history. In a statement about Porto Palermo and the famous tunnel that attracts visitors as well as foreign journalists, Blendi Fevziu said that 100 people were killed during its construction during the dictatorship but were not reported.
The engineer said that this is a false statement, that 100 people were not killed in this tunnel as the journalist Blendi Fevziu said a while ago, but 3 people, two soldiers and a civilian. Several others were injured and Mr. Zyfi himself was among the accident victims.
"Blendi Fevziu's documentary that 100 people were killed in the tunnel but were not reported is not correct. It should be noted that technical insurance was always required.
The practice of opening tunnels in hydropower plants and railways was almost the same, the safety regulations were being worked on. I come to Shqip today to tell you that I am one of those who had an accident in the tunnel. I declare with responsibility that three people were killed in that tunnel, accidentally at work.
Two were soldiers and one was a civilian. Because not only soldiers worked there, but also civilians, masons, carpenters, builders, motorists, surveyors from the surrounding villages. There were also injured people, among whom I am.
I had a serious accident, I was covered for 4 minutes, then they took me out and I was hospitalized. We cannot artificially increase this number because it creates a wrong image. It is not true that this facility is a failure and that it has never been put into operation. The realization of this object cost the Albanian state a lot, but no country in the Balkans had a similar tunnel.
This was a model of a facility that was near Sevastopol in Russia, and another one in Italy. So many objects like Porto Palermo were in the whole. To build a tunnel in the water in these dimensions is extraordinary", says Zyfi.
