Massive blast hits UK fuel depot

Believed to be accidental Explosions tore through a fuel depot north of London yesterday, spewing out a huge tower of smoke and flame in what officials said could be the biggest incident of its kind in peacetime Europe.

Police said only one person was seriously injured and believed it was almost certainly an accident.

"There is nothing that indicates anything other than an accident," Hertfordshire Chief Constable Frank Whiteley told a news conference after Britons, still on edge from July bomb attacks in London, awoke to fresh images of destruction.

Eyewitnesses described a series of massive explosions at the Buncefield oil depot just after 0600 GMT, shooting flames and billowing smoke hundreds of feet into the air, smashing the windows of nearby homes and causing widespread damage.

A Reuters witness said the blast was heard 40 kilometres away in northwest London.

The county's chief fire officer, Roy Wilsher, said it was the largest fire he had ever seen and would burn for at least another 24 hours.

"We have been informed by experts that this is possibly the largest incident of this kind in peacetime Europe," he said.

Hours later, the sky was still blackened by a wall of smoke which had drifted miles across southern England and was big enough to be visible on space satellite images.

Some homes in the area were evacuated. Police said there were 43 casualties but only one person appeared to have suffered serious injuries. "At the moment it looks as if we got off a lot more lightly than you would expect with an explosion of this size," Mr Whiteley said.

Officials said the explosions were unlikely to cause fuel shortages and urged motorists to avoid 'panic buying' of petrol. But witnesses reported queues of drivers at petrol stations, waiting to fill up their cars.

The Buncefield depot supplies petrol and fuel oils to a large part of southeast England, including Luton and Heathrow airports. Oil is brought to the depot, near the town of Hemel Hempstead, by underground pipeline from tankers unloading on the east coast.

A government spokesman said that when full, the depot holds five per cent of Britain's oil supply, but they could not say how much it was holding before the blast.

He said oil industry chiefs were meeting to work out how to guarantee supplies from other distribution terminals.