The explosion heard by millions
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2005 thousands of tonnes of petrol ignited at a fuel depot 40 kilometres North-West of London. The explosion was the largest in the UK since the end of the WWII. The blast, which severely damaged surrounding homes and properties, was reportedly heard in Holland. Despite the enormous amount of damage, nobody was killed. The fire destroyed large parts of the depot, leading to shortages of fuel at petrol stations in the weeks that followed. Five firms were eventually fined millions of dollars for safety failures that led to the blast. Greg Smith tells Witness History what it was like to be inside the depot at the time of the explosion.
Produced and presented by Nick Holland.
Image: Fire at Buncefield oil depot on 12th December 2005. Credit: Peter MacDiarmid/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Nick Holland. |
| 0:41.0 | We're going back to December 2005. It's early on a cold Sunday morning in the United |
| 0:47.2 | Kingdom. Most of the country is fast asleep. But hundreds of thousands of people suddenly get woken up by the sound of an explosion, |
| 0:57.0 | the largest in the UK since the end of the Second World War. |
| 1:02.0 | A month of The emergency. |
| 1:04.0 | I can't have the fire engines, please. |
| 1:06.0 | What's wrong? |
| 1:07.0 | There's been an explosion. |
| 1:08.0 | I live on Mason's Road, and it's at the house that I'm a queen to. |
| 1:12.0 | Okay, it's one of the houses a bit. The time was one minute past six in the |
| 1:14.1 | bit. I don't know if it's a house. What is it if it's a building? |
| 1:17.3 | Okay we're on. The time was one minute past six in the morning on the 11th of December. |
| 1:26.0 | At this time of year in the UK it's still dark. |
| 1:29.0 | But 40 kilometers northwest of London, a bright orange flash lit up the sky. |
| 1:35.6 | I'm trying to say that there's been an explosion on Woodle Farm. |
... |
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