43 Injured in British Oil Depot Explosions

Fire crews were preparing today to use foam to extinguish a massive blaze at a fuel depot north of London after a wave of explosions ripped through the facility and injured 43 people.

Authorities said the blasts Sunday morning appeared to be accidental, though they came just four days after an Al Qaeda video appeared on the Internet calling for attacks on facilities carrying oil “stolen” from Muslims in the Middle East.

The explosions generated a huge fireball and sent a spectacular plume of smoke hundreds of feet in the air that turned the sky black for miles around Hemel Hempstead, about 30 miles north of London.

About 2,000 people living near the depot were evacuated, main roads were closed, and some flights into London’s Heathrow Airport were delayed. Most of the 43 injured suffered cuts and bruises from windows that shattered in the blast, but two men, including a plant worker, were seriously hurt.

A truck driver who had been at the Buncefield depot to fill his tanker with fuel said he and some colleagues had had a “miraculous” escape.

“The force of the blast threw all of us forward onto the floor,” Terry Hine told Sky News TV.

Hertfordshire county fire chief Roy Wilsher said it was the largest fire he had ever seen.

After containing the blaze Sunday, more than 150 firefighters were ready to start putting it out with a blanket of foam early today, a police spokeswoman said.

Officials said the explosions were unlikely to cause fuel shortages, and they urged motorists to avoid panic buying of gasoline.

The depot, the fifth largest in Britain, is run by French oil giant Total and Chevron-Texaco.