The murderous bureaucrats from Crevedia; the victims opposed

Photo source: facebook / Department for Emergency Situations

The two dead people from Crevedia were, in fact, assassinated: Ionel B., who died of cardiac arrest, trying in vain to save his wife from the fire, had asked the authorities several times in the last two years to intervene the local LPG station, which operated illegally, according to press sources. Therefore, the authorities knew from the beginning that that station was operating without authorization. Until this moment, it is not known to which institutions the respective complaints were addressed and whether local authorities were among them.

We tried to find this out from Florin Petre, the mayor of Crevedia, but the mayor did not answer our repeated phone calls. He would have been tired after the prosecutors of the General Prosecutor's Office raided the premises of Crevedia City Hall, the day before our calls.

The tragedy that happened in Crevedia shows that Ionel B. was aware of the danger in which he and his family were. He tried to defend himself, reporting the situation, but the authorities did not take any action. With the exception of those from ISU Dâmboviţa who, in 2020, canceled the fire safety authorization for the LPG charging station at Crevedia. Also, during 2020, ISU employees applied several fines to the company Flagas Srl, which owns the Crevedia workplace. As a result, at the end of 2020, the company that owns the LPG station officially announced that its work point in Crevedia has ceased its activity. However, after the year 2020, the same work point functioned as a parking lot for tankers transporting LPG. It seems that, under the pretext of being a parking lot, the tanker trucks stopped at Crevedia and transferred LPG from one tanker to another. This is exactly what Lică B. and his wife Florica reported to the authorities in the last two years, because they lived near the respective station and faced the strong odors that appeared every time the gas was transferred from one tank to another. On the day when the two explosions took place at the LPG station in Crevedia, the woman smelled gas and, worried, alerted her son by phone. As he explained the situation on the phone, he opened the door, only managing to mention that he smelled something strange and saw something like steam. The conversation ended suddenly, and Florica was engulfed in flames right in front of her husband.

Regarding this disaster, Mayor Florin Petre stated that the place where the explosion followed by the fire took place was rather an LPG warehouse, after the activity of selling fuel to citizens was suspended by the ISU. "When I came to the town hall, this location had its activity suspended by the ISU, it was no longer allowed to sell fuel to citizens. But the tanker was coming, they were loading, they know what they were doing. Those from ISU were in control 2-3 times, but I don't have more information. They were no longer allowed to sell by the cylinders to the citizens, but the tankers were loading there", says Mayor Petre in a post on the official Facebook page of the Crevedia City Hall, which reinforces the statement that the local authorities knew what was happening in that warehouse, but did not they took no action.

The case is similar to that of Alexandra Măceşanu, who called the 112 emergency service, explaining that she had been kidnapped and raped, and was brutally rushed by a policeman, who told her: "I can't stay on the phone, miss, because we have and other calls, stay there because the police crew is coming, they will definitely come".

The respective crew did not come or arrived too late, just like the intervention of the authorities in Crevedia. The public institutions paid to take measures for the protection of citizens against the obvious threat of some dangers are passive and shirk the responsibility incumbent upon them by the functions they occupy. In other words, they are paid for nothing. When a case like the one in Crevedia happens, controls are triggered all over the country, after which it is found that the situation is the same in all cities. Now, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has ordered the verification of all Prawns in the country, given that at the national level - according to gazonline.ro - we have over 2200 LPG stations.

Before the Crevedia disaster, the authorities checked, in the last five years, only 60 stations, of which only one was closed, according to media reports. Our colleague Cătălin Bălan presents, clearly and concisely, in a post on his Facebook page, how things are happening in our country: "Those who will control the LPG stations from "the whole country" will meet on the road with those who already control the dormitories of old people, and they will meet those who control the police stations that do not have drug tests.

The latter also controlled the buildings that were not fire safe after the Collective and there were also some teams that controlled Hexipharma disinfectants.

Of course, there were also control teams after several hospitals caught fire during the Covid period. The method of receiving calls to 112 was also controlled after the tragedies in Caracal and the one in which a madman from Oneşti killed two people with the police and negotiators at the door. Unfortunately, there are many examples...

Controls seem to be the only measure that Romanian governments can take after the tragedies of recent years.

Controls are carried out until people forget the subject and a new tragedy occurs for which the authorities announce other controls. Fundamentally, nothing changes.

It's as if all passengers go without a ticket, but half of them are controllers...".

The Crevedia case could have been avoided, but the authorities did not want to; a deliberate assassination took place here. Thus, the Crevedia disaster, from the end of last week, gave us a new complete picture of what a failed state means. Only a week after the employees of the Traffic Police turned a blind eye to a drugged young man, who then scattered on the road, in the town of 2 Mai, a group of eight young people, causing two deaths, the explosions took place in Crevedia, in the premises of a decommissioned LPG stations only on paper.

Two dead and 56 injured, 12 of them in serious condition, and of these only six intubated patients, following the disaster in Dâmboviţa county. Some of the patients in serious condition were sent, after the stabilization of the medical situation, by military planes to hospitals in Belgium, Austria, Germany and Norway.

Most of the injured from the explosions were from the ranks of firefighters, policemen and gendarmes who were in Crevedia to extinguish the fire. It is about 43 people from among the rescuers. People who were sent to intervene, without an assessment of the situation, of the high risk of new explosions, and who were in the situation of the victims in Mihăileşti, on May 24, 2004, when a shot filled with 20 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded on DN2 (E85). Then there were also victims among the journalists present at the scene, members of a team of the Antena 1 TV trust losing their lives. In Crevedia, some of the journalists present at the scene suffered minor injuries, due to the strong flow generated by the second explosion.

The chaos of the intervention in Crevedia had only one positive point: the evacuation of 3,000 citizens of the locality, to avoid a real tragedy in case the situation had completely escaped the control of the firefighters.

Why are we talking about a failed state? Because one of the two deceased persons - husband and wife - submitted, in the last two years, several complaints to the state institutions regarding the illegal operation of the LPG station in Crevedia owned by the son of the mayor of Caracal. However, all complaints remained unanswered.

Just as Alexandra Măceşanu's calls to 112 went unanswered in July 2019, which led to her murder - according to the final sentence of May 30, 2023 given by the Craiova Court of Appeal, which sentenced Gheorghe Dincă to 30 years of prison for the rape and murder of Alexandra Măceşanu and Luiza Melencu.

The non-involvement of some state institutions has led, over the last eight years, to the tragedies at Colectiv, Caracal, 2 Mai, Crevedia. To which can be added the fires from the pandemic at the ATI wards of the following medical units: the Clinical Emergency Hospital in Piatra Neamţ, the Matei Balş Hospital in Bucharest and the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Constanta. Or what happened before the Collective, on August 16, 2010, when the premature section at the Giuleşti Maternity Hospital was engulfed in a fire. And on top of that, we also add the recent scandal in Voluntari, where several people lost their lives in the asylums of horror.

Regardless of whether we are talking about right-wing or left-wing governments, about local elected officials belonging to one political party or another, we have the same ineffectiveness of state institutions. The officials with control duties from the inspectorates for emergency situations in the territory, from the county directorates of public health, from the town halls, from the local police, from the national police did not do their job... or maybe in some cases they were not allowed to exercise their duties by interested persons from the locality management or even from the political class.

During this time, the governors and parliamentarians talk to us about the social contract, in which the citizens contribute monthly with taxes and fees so that the state can protect us from such situations. In fact, so that the employees of state institutions can exercise their duties for which they are paid from the money collected from taxes and fees paid by citizens and companies.

From the above situation, we note that the state did not fulfill its obligation stipulated in the social contract. Under these conditions, citizens have the right, as in any joint contract regulated by the Civil Code, to terminate this contract and stop paying taxes and fees to the state budget?

The governors, the political class, experts from the state apparatus and even some specialists from the private sector and civil society say no, because we would thus leave the state without the necessary finances, without the oxygen it needs.

The state, in the absence of taxes collected from citizens and companies, would be left without air, as Alexandra Ivanov was left in the hospital in Botoşani and no doctor took into account her cry: "I have no air!".

However, unlike Alexandra's helplessness, the state has at its disposal the necessary levers to sanction all those who would like the termination of the social contract and would refuse to pay any more taxes and fees: they would execute them by force.

Who enforces the Romanian state for failure to fulfill not only the obligations of the social contract, but also for the failure to fulfill the constitutional obligations which, since 1991, establish the Government's obligation to ensure citizens a decent standard of living?

The dismissal of some police chiefs - see the May 2 case - or the prosecution of the Crevedia authorities and the Doldurea family from Caracal, the conviction of Gheorghe Dincă, the conviction of the owners of the Colectiv club are not enough, because they all take place post-factum. The obligation that the state must fulfill is ante-factum, that is, it has a preventive role in order to avoid tragedies.

Unfortunately, the Romanian state and the political class are not able to fulfill their assumed obligations, just as the promises from the electoral campaigns were not fulfilled either. And if we talk about the electoral campaign, next year we have scheduled four types of elections: European parliamentary, local, parliamentary and presidential.

Citizens will be promised a different kind of social contract and be offered the Moon from the sky. Who among them will believe that the politicians and the future government will respect the obligations assumed in 2024?

• Two criminal files on the DNA regarding the Crevedia tragedy

The National Anticorruption Directorate announced the opening of two criminal files regarding the tragic event in Crevedia, according to a press release issued yesterday by the public institution.

"On the role of the National Anticorruption Directorate, two criminal files were registered, formed following ex officio notifications, with the object of the commission by public officials of alleged crimes of abuse of office with the obtaining of undue benefits for themselves or others, in connection with authorization of the LPG station in the town of Crevedia, Dâmboviţa county, where two explosions took place during the day of August 26, 2023. The criminal investigation is carried out regarding the deed ("in rem"), therefore, at this moment, no person has the status of suspect or defendant", the quoted document says.

The anti-corruption prosecutors specify that the investigation in rem does not have the character of formulating accusations against a person/s, but only has the significance of establishing the procedural framework that allows the gathering of evidence necessary to assess whether or not any act that would fall under criminal incidence.

• Ten control institutions participate in LPG station verification

Inspectors from ten control institutions will be part of joint teams that are currently verifying the activities of all LPG stations at the national level. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has ordered employees from the State Inspection for Boiler, Pressure Vessel, and Lifting Installation Control (ISCIR) and from the National Company for Boiler, Lifting Installation, and Pressure Vessel Control to check the authorizations of the installations in their respective locations. Fire Department inspectors will oversee the operational safety of workplaces where fuel operations are carried out, while officials from the Territorial Labor Inspectorates will verify compliance with employment contracts. Employees of the National Environmental Agency will also be part of the joint teams to assess how LPG traders adhere to environmental protection obligations, while the police will ensure compliance with laws related to order and public safety. Officials from the Romanian Road Authority and those from the State Inspectorate for Road Transport Control (ISCTR) will examine authorization documents and inspect the tanks used for transporting LPG, while inspectors from the National Tax Administration Agency (ANAF) and the Customs Authority will monitor whether fiscal obligations have been complied with by the economic operators engaged in the sale and transport of LPG.