Africa-Press – Mozambique. In the coming days, a tripartite consortium comprising the Ministry of Land and Environment, the Maputo CIty Council and Maputo hotel resorts will begin constructing tourist developments in the Malhazine Ecological Park (former arms depot ‘paiol’) in Maputo municipality.
Just over US$10 million will initially be spent, said Teresa Chiquessene, municipal director of the Urban Development Office, when she made the official announcement at a meeting to validate the operational plan for the Malhazine Ecological Park this Thursday.
To mark the beginning of activities, signs will be erected, internal roads will be opened and a security force will be established to supervise the approximately 480-hectare (1186.11 acre) area.
Mayor of Maputo, Eneias Comiche, said that the project’s eco-friendly infrastructure comprises a package of tourist use of places of natural interest.
This Thursday’s seminar presenting the Action Plan, Budget and Investment Opportunities was aimed at validating the partners’ contributions.
The meeting was also attended by the director of Land and Environment at the supervisory ministry, Joaquim Langa.
2007 Maputo arms depot explosion
The 2007 Maputo arms depot explosion were a series of explosions, which occurred in the afternoon of March 22, 2007, from around 16:45 to at least 18:00, in the Malhazine suburb of Maputo, capital city of Mozambique.
The Malhazine Ecological Park was created after the decommissioning of the Malhazine Arms Depot (Paiol) in 2012, to provide a better quality of life to the citizens of Maputo, through the preservation of the area’s landscape and tourist potential.
Plans to transform the former arsenal, situated near the Maputo international airport, had been in the pipeline since 2007, when ammunition stored there exploded during a heatwave, causing 83 fatalities and injuring hundreds of people.
The disaster prompted authorities to move the remaining weapons, which were left over from the nation’s 16-year civil war (1977-1992), to a safer location away from the city. Subsequently, the Mozambican government decided to replace the arms depot with a nature reserve, and by 2016 all traces of explosives had been removed.
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