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Explosion & fire - UK
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Catastrophe Report 8
August 8th to February 23rd 2006 |
Explosion and fire - UK
| Territory: |
|
UK |
| Region: |
|
Hertfordshire |
| Date: |
|
11 December 2005 |
| Event: |
|
Oil storage terminal explosion and fire |
| Impact: |
|
43 people injured and 80 business premises destroyed
or badly damaged. Structural damage occurred to buildings up
to 800m away and cars were burnt out in nearby streets. Due
to the early-morning timing of the blast, nearby business premises
were empty, otherwise deaths and many more injuries would have
occurred. One of the buildings destroyed in the blast was the
HQ of Northgate Information Solutions. Its loss meant several
of its hosted were inaccessible, including that of the ruling
Labour Party. More than 2,000 people in the vicinity of the
blasts and fire were temporarily evacuated, and schools and
public buildings across the counties of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire
were closed for two days for health safety reasons. The event
destroyed five percent of the UK’s petrol stocks and disrupted
fuel supplies to London and the South East England. Fuel rationing
at Heathrow airport – which Buncefield supplied with 30
percent of its aviation fuel – is continuing, with long-haul
flights having to refuel at other London and European airports
and short-haul flights fuelling for a round trip before travelling
to Heathrow. This is having a serious impact on some airlines,
with South African Airlines – for example – losing
US$2.3 a month through having to refuel in Milan. Panic buying
occurred for a time at petrol stations in SE England. Business
interruption and other knock-on effects are blamed for threatening
up to 4,000 jobs in the local area. Figures for economic loss
are not available, but estimates of insured loss are on the
order of US$200 million. This includes the cost of the facility,
US$50 million in property claims and business interruption.
|
| Summary: |
|
A series of massive explosions obliterated 20
large fuel storage tanks and triggered a three-day fire that
destroyed much of the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal (Buncefield
Oil Depot) located 7km from the Hertfordshire town of Hemel
Hempstead and 40 km north of London. The site – jointly
owned by Total Oil and Texaco - was used to store a range of
fuels including leaded and unleaded petrol, kerosene, gas oil
and aviation fuel, the latter of which took up 50 percent of
the storage capacity. In 2004, around 2.34 million tomes of
fuel passed through the terminal, involving the loading of 400
road tankers every day. Total capacity of the terminal was 273
million litres (60 million imperial gallons). The event is probably
the largest of its kind in Europe since World War II, and took
180 fire fighters more than 72 hours to bring under control.
The initial blast registered 2.4 on the Richter Scale for earthquake
magnitude and was heard up to 160km away. There are also unconfirmed
reports that it was heard in France and the Netherlands. A cloud
of black smoke quickly reached 2750m and drifted westwards.
After 2 days the plume reached France and later northern Spain.
The precise cause of the blast remains to be established, but
it appears to have been initiated by ignition of a large (200m
wide) cloud of fuel and water vapour arising from a major leak.
A small leak was investigated a few weeks before the blast,
but it is not known if the two were connected. |
| Data sources: |
|
Total Oil: Buncefield Terminal Fast Facts
http://www.total.gb.com/media/mediatool.cfm?page=1
UK Health & Safety Executive
http://www.buncefieldinvestigation.gov.uk/
|
| Additional sources: |
|
UK Natural Environment Research Council
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/latestpressrelease/2005_58oil.asp
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