How ‘controlled’ explosion to demolish coal plant left thousands without power
Thousands of households lost electricity yesterday moments after a power station was demolished in a so-called controlled explosion.
Three people were injured in the aftermath of the blast – which brought down didcot a’s three 375ft towers – after a nearby electricity pylon caught fire.
some 40,000 homes in oxfordshire lost power, with the hour-long blackout hitting towns up to ten miles away.
Pictures and video showed people – who had gathered in a nearby field to watch the 7am demolition – running away as a blue flash exploded from the pylon.
one onlooker said her daughter’s hair was burned during the incident. she said: ‘For a brief moment I thought someone had let off fireworks. But it rained down with sparks that burned, and we got burned. My five year-old ran away so she wasn’t hurt, but some of my three year-old’s hair was burnt.’
one person was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
scottish and southern Electricity networks initially insisted the blackout was not linked to the demolition, but later confirmed the power cut ‘was caused by material related to the demolition of didcot power station striking our overhead electricity network’. a spokesman said: ‘a large section of debris protection material became detached from one of the cooling towers and made contact with our overhead line, which was outside of the advised perimeter. This resulted in significant damage to the overhead line and subsequent network faults.’ The blackout led to traffic lights stopping working, shops closing and customers unable to pay for fuel.
sharon Cooper, 50, from the village of sutton Courtenay, said one of her friends woke up to their house shaking.
she added: ‘We heard all these car and house alarms go off.
‘We got back to ours and there was no power.’ The coal-fired power station – which was turned off in 2013 after 43 years of service – was at the centre of another controversy in 2016 when four men died after the partial collapse of the boiler house.
The power station was voted Britain’s third worst eyesore by Country Life in 2003,