Firefighters were tackling a massive blaze at a key oil depot north of London early on Monday, after explosions sent orange fireballs and a pall of thick black smoke into the sky over southern England.
About 150 firefighters at the Buncefield depot near the town of Hemel Hempstead, about 40km north-west of London, began fighting the inferno at about midnight local time, hoping to smother the blaze with foam.
”This will create a foam blanket to cover the flames,” a police spokesperson for the county of Hertfordshire said early on Monday. ”They are hoping that that will suffice. The foam should smother the whole of the site.”
The explosions and fire happened before dawn on Sunday, leaving 43 people injured in what police said appeared to be an accidental blast.
”It’s like it’s doomsday,” witness Richard Ayres said just after the first blasts occurred at about 6am, vibrating as far away as the outskirts of London.
The three explosions tore parts of walls off buildings in an industrial park, smashed windows and dented doors of homes, ripped tiles off house roofs, burned trees and at least half-a-dozen cars over a wide area, an Agence France-Presse reporter said.
Dave Franklin, who lives about a kilometre from the depot, told BBC television he was woken up by ”an absolutely massive loud bang”.
Witnesses said the first ball of orange fire rose an estimated 60m to 90m into the sky.
The fire caused widespread traffic disruption, including closing down sections of the M1 motorway, a main artery north from London.
Foam concentrate
Hertfordshire’s chief fire officer, Roy Wilsher, had to wait to receive about 250 000 litres of foam concentrate from around the country before ordering the firefighting operation to begin in earnest, such was the size of the blaze.
The foam concentrate was being mixed with water from a canal about 3km from the site of the blaze.
The fire service said about 25 000 litres of water per minute were being pumped from the Grand Union canal to fight the fire, which Wilsher described as perhaps the biggest fire of its kind in peacetime Europe.
”I would expect the operation to last throughout the night and well into tomorrow,” said Wilsher on Sunday.
Only seven of the 26 oil-container tanks at the depot appeared to have escaped the flames.
The Total and Texaco oil depot was able to store 150 000 tonnes of various fuels and oil derivatives.
Until the attempt to envelope the blaze began at midnight, the firefighters had contained the fire’s expansion by pumping a curtain of water at the flames and the still-intact oil containers.
Massive cloud
Fears were growing, especially in the British press, over the toxic nature of the smoke cloud thrown up by the blaze, estimated to be about 230km wide.
However several experts said the fumes presented no immediate health hazard, as they had been thrown so high into the sky, despite concentrations of carbon monoxide and dioxide.
Firefighters and health officials could expect no help, or hindrance, from any rainfall on Monday, according to the forecasters.
Jeremy Plester, of the national meteorological bureau, said that would at least prevent the phenomenon of dangerous ”black rain” falling as the cloud, visible from space satellites, drifts south towards the English channel.
Hertfordshire police’s Chief Constable Frank Whiteley promised a full probe into the fire at the oil depot, the fifth-largest fuel-distribution centre in Britain.
”All indications at this stage are that this was an accident. However, clearly we will keep an open mind,” he told a press conference.
Terror fears
Jittery from deadly bombings in the British capital in July, residents and workers in the rural area worried at first that the explosions might have been caused by a terrorist attack, or a plane crash linked to nearby Luton airport.
Whiteley said 43 people were hurt, most with minor injuries.
However, a hospital official said one person’s condition was serious, but not critical, as a result of lung damage from the impact of the blast.
The police chief said it was ”miraculous” there had been no mass casualties, adding that many people might have died if the apparent accident had occurred on a busy weekday.
Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, visited the blast site and police headquarters for a briefing.
The depot, which distributes aviation fuel to airports in the London area, is run by the British arm of French oil company Total and Texaco, part of United States oil giant Chevron Texaco.
Whiteley and oil industry officials urged motorists to stop rushing to petrol stations to fill up — warning that they could cause an artificial shortage — after insisting that Britain had enough supplies elsewhere to fill the gap.
Most schools in the area were expected to remain closed on Monday. — Sapa-AFP