It was back in 2008 that the project to build a wind farm on Cerro Calcaire (Padul) finally got the go ahead, with work commencing in 2011; not everybody was happy with the idea. About month ago it was announced that the installations would be operational by the end of this year, generating enough electricity for 7,000 homes.

However, at the beginning of March seven pieces of heavy, earth-moving machinery were torched. Just one of the machines; a giant trench digger, weighing 70 tonnes, costs a million euros, which was totally destroyed. The total damage caused was to the tune of 2.5m euros.

The security guard, who was stationed at the bottom of the hill, saw seven balls of flame erupt and immediately phoned the Guardia Civil, but there was little that they or the firemen could do by the time that they got there. Forensic police gathered all kinds of evidence, noting tyre tracks from motorbikes and how the fuel tanks had been perforated.

Only three of the vehicles belonged to the construction company, with the other having been hired – the 70-tonne beast amongst them. Even the logistics of removing the demised trench digger is going to be costly, as it has to be dismantled and a new access track opened to get it out.

The owner of the construction company, Manuel Rodríguez Lema, does not believe that it was work of vandals but was rather ‘intentional sabotage.’

(News: Padul, Granada, Andalucia)