There's just been a big explosion..

[Ady168uk]

Man initially I thought it was a thunderstorm..but damn thats the biggest wake up call I ever experienced, how my mum some how slept through it I never know...

just hope they can clear things up quickly...3mil gals of fuel gonna be burning for a long time :'(

[Howard]

P.S I didn't say panic buy... i just said as a precaution. ( there aren't any other large petrol storage places that supply the south east near here, therefore prices are either going to go up, or supplies will drop - simple business sense really)
I need my car to get to work, some people need them for medical things... Supplies may be impacted. It was just a polite warning.

.

I'm sure the fuel supply to the SE won't come to a standstill beacuse of this.. It was aviation fuel anyway. If people go out and fill up unnecessarily it just makes matters worse

Nothing really came of the recent fuel strikes except raised prices

[unreal]

Looks like night outside :/


Well sort of

[Nemeliza]

The first blast happened at 0603 GMT at the Buncefield fuel depot, close to junction 8 of the M1 motorway and was heard as far away as the Netherlands.

Isn't holland more than a couple of miles away?...........Cos I didnt hear a damn thing!

[BenW]

My mum woke at 6 and thought there was a burgler! We're ~30 miles away

[menthel]

Sat here watching TV and the ITV coverage is sooooo overblowing the whole thing. The BBC are only having intermittent updates when needed. ITV is rubbish.

[headbrace]

I live very close to the depot in Hemel Hempstead, prob less that half a mile away or so. I wasn't at home at the time, but my dad was and said that it was one of the loudest noises he's ever heard.

If you look on Sky News, there are some mobile phone vids that were taken by our neighbour.

Unfortunately, with this type of fire, they can't just "put it out". They need to turn of any fule supply to it, and then leave it to burn itself out. Which could take quite a while. Luckily it was pretty cloudless this morning, otherwise the blast could have been much worse. We've had little damage here, apart from the Garage door being blown off, but others don't appear to have been so lucky. There was a new warehouse building that was absoloutely huge that had just been finishjed. I'm told now that half of it's side is missing, which I imagine is a trifle awkward.

Now of course, we wil have to deal with the ongoing fire, with the possibility of other explosions, and also the smoke that will take sometime to disperse. Joy.

[menthel]

I'm not, the old black and white on BBC2 is much better! Impressive cloud though. I remember when the oil refinery opposite my Nan's house in Milford Haven went BOOM! Just a bit smaller than this one though.

edit: They say the smoke should not be too much trouble by tonight because a weather front is coming over.

[hoodmeister]

Bbc > Itv

[TeePee]

I know they are saying they are treating this as an accident, but there ARE some suggestions of terrorist involvement.

It happened at near enough to 0600 to suggest a timing device.

While it doesn't fit the profile of a target for middle eastern terrorists, who go for massive caualties, it is a perfect example of a target for the 1970's IRA, with economic damage and a minimum of casualties. 0600 on a Sunday morning is exactly the time they would choose to achieve this. But which terrrorist groups are like that today?

The other question is to how a tank full of fuel explodes. Assuming it was aviation fuel, it would have to be Jet-A1 for this quantity to exist, and this is a fuel similar to diesel in it's volatility. Even if it were Avgas (which is so little used that it isn't really stockpiled in this country) then just chucking a match into a tank wouldn't do it. For fuel to explode you need the right mixture of fuel and air. This might come from an empty tank full of fumes (but this would be a smaller explosion). You could get this mixture if there were a fire next to a sealed tank, and the fuel was heated, or the best explanation would be explosion next to a tank vapourising and dispersing the fuel. A tank full of fumes setting up a second tank full of fuel is one posibility, but explosives are a better fit.

It will be interesting to see what the investigation turns up.

[vincent]

im watching it now on Sky news- according to what they say at the mo now.....

there was 39 casualties- with only cuts and bruises been sent to hospital.....however 1 is a serious condition and is being watched closely

a representitive at the mo is chattign crap about how procedures are carried otu at the plant for any possibility of things like also - and tis still burning at the mo :O

they 'll have to get the proper fire peeps [aka the redaderr fire bridage] or the Army's fire service

[Norky]

100 miles? Jeeeesus

[unreal]

Omg the smoke has singlehandedly covered London :I

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl...last/img/1.jpg

[BlueMagician]

I've been out there all morning - got some images - not as close at we'd like - probably about 5 minutes walk away from the site.
It's pretty bizarre people wandering around - we even got into one of the evacuation centers - seeing a local bar/club turned into a St.Johns station is very weird..

Will post what images I have this evening, once I've finished up here, and had a chance to process my RAWs..

S.

[Stoo]

Merged the two threads..

BTW, one of the drivers was just on bbc news and said that it wasn't the aviation fuel that went up.

Driver on sky news saying they saw some smoke/fumes coming out of a tank, alerted the office, then legged it just in time as it blew..

[unreal]

Wow, you can turn that into a movie