Spanish urban explorers enter a former British naval base in Malta

Malta, an archipelago located in the Mediterranean Sea and now an independent country, was a British colony from 1814 to 1964.

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The Royal Navy had a number of facilities in Malta, including a naval base in Valletta harbour, an ammunition depot (RNAD Corradino), two torpedo depots (RNTD Kalafrana and RNTD Msida) and a fortified position (RNAD HMS St. Angelo). These facilities were of vital importance during the Second World War, when Malta became a place of maximum strategic importance, being repeatedly attacked by the Germans.

Following Malta's independence, the British military presence in Malta continued until 31 March 1979, when the last British troops left, a date remembered by the Maltese as Freedom Day. Last Sunday, the Youtube channel Okos published a video showing Spanish urban explorers exploring a former underground Royal Navy facility in Malta, which they accessed via the port of Valletta (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

Although the video gives no details of the location of the facility, what we see appears to be the RNAD Corradino ammunition depot (called Kordin by the British) and next-door underground power station, which was owned by the British Armed Forces until 1979, before being taken over by the Enemalta company, which operated it until 1992.

This facility has been described as “one of the most impressive sites of industrial archaeology in Malta”, according to the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta, Robert Ghirlando. The big problem with this facility is asbestos, which is why the Spanish explorers entered wearing protective masks. You can find out more about this ancient facility on the website 28dayslater.co.uk.

You can see here some screenshots from this interesting video. At the top of this post we see what appears to be one of the old ammunition depots of the RNAD Corradino, although it could have been used later as a spare parts store, judging by its current contents. Above these lines we can see the ventilation towers of the underground power station, located on Corradino Hill, next to the facilities of the port of Valletta.

The video features this interesting image in which we see one of the dry docks in the port of Valletta, with the British patrol vessel HMS Trent (P224) located inside. This Royal Navy ship is based in the British colony of Gibraltar, in southern Spain. It was sent to Malta for maintenance operations in mid-October 2024.

Finally, an excellent image of two large turbines in the old Corradino underground power station, now sadly abandoned.