Fireworks crane reveals the bright side of the boom

For once, a 13-storey tower crane standing in a field in Qormi is not the harbinger of some massive development to come.
Rather, looming above the St George’s Fireworks Factory ahead of a much-anticipated pyrotechnics display this weekend, the crane is part of the latest innovative trend making fireworks shows bigger and bolder than ever before.
Some 20 people have laboured for months on the structure, which the organising team have dubbed the ‘Tower of Diamonds’. Roughly 2,500 igniters have been loaded on to the tower, and when they all go off, the team promises, the result will be worth all the effort.
“This is something innovative for Qormi,” Jason Busuttil, a member of the April 23 Pyrotechnics Society, told the Times of Malta. “It was a big challenge, nearly a year of hard work for everyone involved. We’ve seen a simulation and we know it’s going to be a spectacular part of the show.”
This weekend’s show, which is part of celebrations for the feast of St George, will be only the third time Malta has seen this sort of towering vertical display, which the team considers the cherry on the cake of a show that has got bigger every year.

The society itself also continues to see...