Explosion Resulted In the Death of Two People

People appealed to the district Administrative Board, Municipality, Sanitary Supervision Inspection and police several times. Last year, they have applied to the court to avoid danger but the judge did not discuss their case for having “no grounds and being many faults in it”. Shortly speaking, nobody got interested in the problem until last week, two people died as a result of explosion in a small cottage enterprise in the village of Jugaani in the Sighnaghi District.

“The enterprise was set up six years ago. It was equipped with artisan devices and produced cheese “Sulguni”. There are about seven similar enterprises in Gurjaani. They are situated in a residential area and several of them have already exploded. One similar accident ended with tragedy in 2005. We witnessed the accident and got very worried about the situation. Situation is particularly unbearable in summer when it is too hot. We cannot open windows because of bad smell. We demanded to remove similar enterprises from the village. We applied to the Administrative Board, Municipality, Sanitary Supervision Inspection and Police Station; however nobody paid attention to us. We demanded the owner of the enterprise to remove his factory from the area; although he promised us to follow our demand, he did nothing. In 2006 we applied to the Sighnaghi based non-governmental organization. They prepared a suit for us to send to the court but the judge found some faults in it and then said demand was unreasonable. The judge said that we had our personal interests regarding the situation and did not discuss our suit at all,’ said Lali Kartvelishvili, Mzisadar Khajrishvili and others residents of the village of Jugaani.

The incident happened in December of 2006 at the enterprise. Despite the fact, witnesses said that the owner, Ivane Sesitashvili went on working after the incident.

“Everything was shaking around when it exploded; luckily there were no victims. Law enforcers from the Tsnori department of the Sighnaghi Police Station arrived at the place, searched the scene and left. They did not take the people’s demand on removing the enterprise form the area, into consideration. The owner managed to make everyone silent during several years. MP Nugzar Abulashvili was protecting him, who is also a resident of Jugaani. What will he do now? Did he wait for this disaster to happen to take urgent measures? “The voice of the outburst was similar to bomb-explosion. Everything was in dust when we went out into the street. The windows of the houses 200 meters away from the enterprise were smashed. The walls cracked and some even pulled down. Two people died in the yard of the workshop. Cattle and poultry died in the neighborhood. The cars also were damaged in the yards,” said Soso Kikilashvili who lives next to the exploded enterprise.

Two people died as a result of the accident. They were thirty-four-year-old Gela Merabishvili and sixteen-year-old Lasha Elashvili, who worked at the enterprise. Three-year-old Giorgi Kokhtashvili was badly damaged. He has already been operated on at the Tbilisi Iashvili Children’s Clinical Hospital. The doctors said that the child’s health is stable but still grave.

Criminal Case was launched on the fact. Sighnaghi District Police is carrying out investigation. Aleksandre Onanashvili, the head of the Soghnaghi district police station said in his conversation with the Human Rights Center that the criminal case was launched under the Georgian Criminal Code, Article 242, Section III that envisages the violation of the enterprise-technical security regulations within the enterprise which resulted into a death of two people. The crime envisages imprisonment from five to eight years.

“There are many similar enterprises in Gurjaani but the police are not responsible to control them at all. In December, some incident really happened at Sesitashvili’s enterprise, but it was not explosion but percolation. The population might have demanded to remove the enterprise from the place, they have not appealed to the police. Judicial-Medical examination was carried out on the dead people and technical expertise is being conducted to estimate the real reasons for the accident,” said Onanashvili.

Sestiashvili’s family members deny commenting on the fact. The owner was slightly damaged during the explosion and he is at hospital.

Davit Jokharidze, the head of the Sighnaghi Sanitary Supervision Inspection, said in his conversation with the Human Rights Center, their office is not responsible to control similar organizations anymore. Subsequently, the inspection does not have any information about the violations in such workshops.

The Tax Inspection does not give information about the exact number and location of similar enterprises. Ramaz Khatiashvili, the new governor of the Sighnaghi Municipality considers that he was not responsible to react on similar accidents even if he had information about the violations.  “Must I go round the villages and check which enterprises have signed contracts with their employees and which have artisan equipments? I am a freshman at the position and I know nothing about the situation. I have guests now and I have no time to attend to that case. The Administrative Board has nothing to do with the accident. Do not you understand what I am telling you? You should not make me repeat one and the same,” shouted Khatiashvili and cut off the line.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the only responsible body to observe the situation at workshops is financial police. Unfortunately, the latter got interested into the activities of the enterprise after the accident. Representatives of the Financial Police’s Kakheti Department do not comment on the situation.
Unless artisan enterprises are removed form the residential areas immediately, the local people threaten to dismantle them on their own.

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti