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British fire crews to battle oil depot blaze
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-12 09:49
Fire crews in southern England are to begin fighting one of Europe's biggest
peace time blazes on Monday after a wave of explosions ripped through a fuel
depot.
A spectacular plume of smoke turned the sky black for miles around after
blasts caused widespread damage and started a blaze which sent fireballs
shooting into the air early on Sunday.
Police said it was too early to say what caused the explosions, which injured
43 people, one seriously, although they said it appeared to be an accident.
The blasts, reportedly heard up to 100 miles (160 km) away, initially raised
fears of a possible repeat of the deadly wave of suicide bombings in London in
July.
A member of the Hertfordshire Police wears a protective mask
at a road block close to the Buncefield Terminal near Hemel Hempstead,
England after an explosion at one of Britain's largest oil depots jolted
an area north of London early Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005.
[AP] | "We all thought it could be a terrorist
attack," builder Ricky Clarke, who lives near the depot near the town of Hemel
Hempstead, north of London, told the Daily Mail newspaper. "Everyone was really
panicking and just getting in their cars and going."
A truck driver queuing at the Buncefield depot to fill his lorry with fuel
said he and some colleagues had had a "miraculous" escape.
"There was just a massive, massive explosion," Terry Hine told Sky News
television. "The force of the blast threw all of us forward onto the floor."
Chief fire officer, Roy Wilsher, said it was the largest fire he had ever
seen.
"We have been informed by experts that this is possibly the largest incident
of this kind in peace time Europe," he said.
FIRE CREWS MOVE IN
After containing the fire on Sunday, more than 150 firefighters were ready to
start putting it out with a blanket of foam early on Monday, a police
spokeswoman said.
About 2,000 people living near the depot were evacuated, main roads were
closed and some flights into London's Heathrow airport were delayed.
British newspapers cleared their pages for scores of pictures of the fire
under headlines such as "Vision of Doomsday", "Cloud of Doom" and "Black
Sunday".
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott visited the scene and praised the
emergency services' work.
"He was just glad that the number of people injured was small and that there
were no fatalities," a spokesman said.
The depot supplies petrol and fuel oils to a large part of southeast England,
including Luton and Heathrow airports.
A government spokesman said that when full, the depot holds five percent of
Britain's oil supply, but they could not say how much it was holding before the
blast.
Officials said the explosions were unlikely to cause fuel shortages and urged
motorists to avoid 'panic buying' of petrol.
The depot, the fifth largest in Britain, is jointly run by oil companies
Total and Texaco.
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