Gavin, 11 December 05
An explosion at the Buncefield oil depot, East of Hemel Hemstead, shortly after 6am GMT rocked much of the South of England and continues to disrupt the area with transport diversions and panic buying of petrol.
Dramatic images of the spreading smoke plume are reminiscent of Baghdad in 2003.
Police have stressed that the incident is being treated as an accident and that the remaining oil network has contingency plans for dealing with the supply depletion.
While the terminal at Buncefield is one of many throughout the UK – perhaps the fifth largest, it does feature prominently on internet searches for this topic. In fact this terminal was the only one returned as a Google result for UK oil pipeline network prior to the explosion, which describes Buncefield as a major national hub.
