4 feared dead in power station collapse
FOUR people were feared dead last night after a building collapsed at a decommissioned power station.
Witnesses described hearing a ‘ massive explosion’ seconds before half the tenstorey building crashed down, with a dust cloud threatening to engulf nearby homes.
One person died and three are still missing. Five demolition workers were taken to hospital and 50 people were treated at the scene for dust inhalation. Local residents were warned to stay inside.
Specialist rescuers usually sent to earthquake zones were last night searching for survivors in the ‘unstable’ 30ft-deep rubble.
Construction workers had been at the site in Didcot, South Oxfordshire, to prepare the steel and concrete building for demolition – prompting fears it had collapsed early.
Paul Whitehurst, the GMB union’s national officer for construction, said the collapse was in part of a building that housed two boilers weighing ‘thousands of tons’ and suggested preparations for demolition may have been the cause. ‘Before they blow something with charges, they weaken the area so it collapses under its own weight,’ he said.
The station, run by RWE npower, is divided into Didcot A – decommissioned in 2013 – and Didcot B which supplies the National Grid. The collapse appeared to be in Didcot A’s former turbine hall, which was due to be taken down in ten days.
Blaine Morris-Smith, who was walking his dogs nearby, told the BBC: ‘I just heard a massive explosion behind me and a few kids started screaming … I turned around and half of the building actually looked like it was imploding.’
Nathan Travis, Oxfordshire Fire Service’s deputy chief, said there had been no explosion.
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust confirmed five men were being treated at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, adding that four were stable, and one was in a serious but not lifethreatening condition. A RWE npower spokesman said: ‘We are working with our contractors Coleman & Co to establish the facts.’ Police and the Health and Safety Executive will investigate the collapse.