HUGE EXPLOSIONS & MASSIVE FIRE IN UK
I don’t know if you guys have seen these scenes from the oil depot here in England that mysteriously exploded yesterday and is now gripped in a fire of almost apocalyptic proportions. Today it is feared that all clues as to why and how the fire started will actually be lost due to the fact that there simply will be nothing left once the fire is put out.
The blast of the initial explosion yesterday morning at around 6am damaged a vast number of homes and was felt up to 50 or 60 miles away. It seems incredible to imagine, but the last were so loud that they woke many people across the entire south of the country and were even heard as far away as the Netherlands!
A friend of mine living about 15 or 20 miles from the site spoke of how her house actually shook “as if in an earthquake.” She went onto say “It woke me up and then my son rushed in to our bedroom. I looked out the window thinking maybe a plane had crashed close by, maybe in another street or something.”
Although firefighters say the inferno is under control they also admit that fighting a fire of this scale is “uncharted territory” and it may yet be days before the fire is out. Their is now growing concern about the toxic levels of the huge cloud of smoke that is covering a vast area of the south of England. People living where the smoke is drifting are still being advised to stay indoors with the windows closed.
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Firefighters tackle Europe’s largest fire
In pictures
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I don’t know how far away it is but my boyfriend said he felt it in Carterton. He said he thought it was something being blown up at the military base near his house.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2005 at 6:46 am
Simon, are you hearing that it was an accident or something else that set off the explosion/blaze?
Wrote the following comment on Dec 16, 2005 at 6:22 pm
It wasn’t terrorism. It was an accident.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 18, 2005 at 10:22 am
I think the one here in the UK was just a bit larger than the ones you have in America. I know about the one in Texas. They compared it to that last one saying it was several times bigger. The exact description of the blast was that it was as powerful as a small nuclear bomb and that the explosion was heard as far away as the Netherlands – which is a whole different country! WOW!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 18, 2005 at 6:48 am
We have those accidents here all the time on the Gulf Coast. We have lots of refineries and petroleum plants. In fact British Pertroleum is being faced with a huge lawsuit for the last explosion. One too many by that single company in the last few years.