Hemel Hempsted!!

[Baronvhb]

Anyone from Hemel Hempsted? What's going on?? Hope everyone's alright!!

Watching Sky News and waiting for some accurate info. Sounds really scary, pics are incredible.

[jno]

oil depot explosions, see

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm

[smudge]

My husband was woken up at 6:00am this morning to a loud rumbling banging noise on the bedroom door, which also shook the house & set off the alarms in Dunstable Town Centre. He thought there had been a mini earthquake, but after turning on Sky news, found it to be the shock waves from the explosion at the Oil Depot at Buncefield, Hemel Hempstead.

It could also be heard as far away as Surrey.

[smudge]

Some of the reports from: Sky-News

[Drusilla]

I live on the border between London and Hertfordshire and my windows started rattling at 6am, like someone was trying to break in. As I sat up in bed I heard a low, rumbling boom. I knew straight away it was an explosion, but didn't have time to get frightened because my two daughters came hurtling into my bedroom and dived under the covers.
I phoned my friend who lives in Hemel and she talked of neighbours walking into the street to check things out because it was so incredibly loud.
Can anyone tell me why my windows rattled before I heard the explosion? I was always more arts based than science orientated at school.

[sunflower68]

Hope you're not too shaken up Smudge and Drusilla. It must be very frightening down there. It's my childhood stomping ground, just gonna call my pal there. Take care. xx

[Jules001]

I live not far from Hertfordshire and I was woken up at 6.30 am by a very loud bang which seemed to shake the house and then a sort of a low sustained rumble. Can you believe, none of the rest of my family were even aware of it. I came down to breakfast doubting whether I had heard it or dreamt it, mentioned it to Mr Jules who said he had caught the tail end of something on tv about something in Hemel so switched on tv to find out about it.

[eupraxia]

My girl lives in Hemel and her boyfriend works in a depot next door to the refimery. He would have been arriving at work if that had been tomorrow morning. My girl said she heard what she thought was thunder and it was dark and misty when she got up.

She has still got to go to work dispite they told people to stay in doors. Oddly enough I live in Milton Keynes and although my sister in law heard it, and she only lives down the road from me, I heard nothing. Don't understand how people in Bristol heard it. The acoustics must be good today.

[Evorg Enaj]

I live six miles North of Hemel Hempstead and was almost thrown out of bed by the explosion at 6 am this morning. Looked out and at first there was a single column of smoke several hundred feet straight up in the sky lit by red flames about two hundred feet high. There were then two further explosions at about 6.15 and 6.20 accompanied by a surge of flame. The top of the smoke column then turned east towards Reading and spread very densely about two hundred feet above the ground in a huge black tube for at least ten miles (the air is very still this morning). When the sun came up it lit the top edge of this huge black cloud in brilliant gold and at the same time in the Hemel Hempstead stack waiting to land at Heathrow there were 11 planes all making white vapour trails in different directions. It was like a scene out of a madhouse !! As I type I can still see smoke rising, although the colour has changed from dense black to brown.

[smudge]

Although it woke my husband up (as I mentioned earlier), I didn't hear a thing - thanks to my wonderful ear plugs!

[smudge]

P.S. Thank you for caring sunflower. -x-

[Drusilla]

Thanks Sunflower. My daughters made me get them toast at 6am. I could have done without that!!
Evorg Enaj, I loved your account. You should become a journalist, I was disappointed when you stopped writing.

[Evorg Enaj]

I have just heard that twenty storage tanks are on fire each containing five million gallons of fuel. There are 38 casualties, 2 serious, no deaths. The fire is expected to last for several days. We have been warned that there could be further explosions.

[happy_face]

I live in Ealing, West London and I was woken up at 6.05 am by a huge bang which at first I thought it was fireworks but then realised it couldn't be at that time in the morning. As far as I know Ealing is miles away, amazing I got woken up by it. Must've been terrifying for anyone living near by. Am I the only one who doesn't think it was accidental? War in Iraq based on oils and now an oil depot goes up in flames. Wonder if all depot will go up like when the Americans entered Iraq and all the oil depots were set on fire.

[loudickson71]

Al Kaiweeda. Bears all the signs.

[bernardo]

Drusilla:

Can anyone tell me why my windows rattled before I heard the explosion? I was always more arts based than science orientated at school.

I guess that the vibrations may have been moving more quickly through the ground than the air. Therefore, the windows would have "felt" the wobbling first, before the sound waves came dawdling through the air later. I'm a bit rusty on the detalis, but this sort of thing is what helps "them" to measure the depth, location and strength of earthquakes - the waves go through different layers of Earth at different speeds.

[coyn]

Since many tanks are burning I'm surprised that the terrorist element hasn't been put forward yet, or perhaps it has and I missed it.

[El D]

Doesn't bear many similiarities to an attack - usually they are aimed at killing the most people possible, not damaging the countries infrastructure. It certainly wouldnt; be a suicide bomber, these people live on glory, very little glory in blowing up an oil depot. Just because something blows up doesn;t mean its terrorists.

[Supernick]

I'm sitting in the office looking at the vast plume of black smoke appearing over the tops of the houses. People are swapping war stories, and some reckon that if anything the flames are even larger this morning. We're about 1 1/2 miles away at the moment and lots of people I work with are from the evacuation zone etc.

[qapmoc]

This fits the scenerio for a typical industrial accident. If you check it out you will find that many accidents around the world have taken place as this one did, during the night shift at or near the end of a shift when everybody on duty is tired and least alert, and very often at sites were the staff has been ''downsized'' for cost reasons and are under more strain.

Some good examples are - Three Mile Island, Bophal, Chernobyl, The Exxon Valdiz, (and now Hemel Hempstead) etc....etc.... see this site for some info on the subject.

[Englishbird]

I'm right down in mid surrey and we could see the smoke yesterday, thought it was a storm coming. We're so so lucky it happened when it did, and my best wishes go out to all the people caught up in it, anyone hurt or who has had their home damaged. x