Gërdec is a village in Albania, 11 kilometers north-west of the capital Tirana, part of the municipality Vorë. It was the site of the explosions at a military base on 15 March 2008, causing the deaths of more than 27 people and injuring over 100.[1]
Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu resigned, and the press reported many irregularities at the blast site, operated by an Albanian company that deactivated the country's aging ammunition and then sold it for scrap.
One factor of the event not made public yet is an error made by engineers who designed the machinery the demilitarisation company and associates employed on the project used. A fundamental design assumption made early in the design process rendered the basic machinery potentially lethal. Researchers and designers of the ammunition disposal kilns assumed the combustible compounds within the ammunition would burn away at 350 degrees Celsius. Documents available from the US military state, and thermochemical and thermodynamic calculations will verify, the combustible compounds within the ammunition being disposed of at Gerdec burn to give out a heat amounting to 4500 degrees Celsius. Such an energy which would, without further sufficient and adequate designed machine components, lead to vaporization and explosion of the machines used to dispose of the ammunition dumps.