Adventures of the Dread Pirate Emmeline May

Is way more interesting than bbc 24. They just showed a cg diagram thingy which answered the question mum and i have been discussing all day - how come the first explosion was SO massive, and the second two so much smaller. They were just bangs; not house-shakey.

The gas depot site is in two halves, on either side of a road. The side that is 'sploded had one HUGE tank, and lots of smaller ones. The other side of the road has lots of small ones and three huge ones. The MASSIVE explosion was the BIG one on the one side blowing up; the second 'splosion was two smaller ones going.

The fire service are trying to keep the fire on that side of the road. I can only imagine what it would be like if the fire spead to the other side, and blew up the other massive tanks. eek.

They're also explained why so many people heard the sound so far away; something to do with high pressure, low clouds, soundwaves and the thames valley. i understood it at the time, but not well enough to re-iterate!

They reckon it will be burning for several days; it's simply not possible to put it out, it's too big; and they have to wait until the fuel has burnt itself out.

My cousin is in the Herts fire service; hope he's ok!

i just went outside to have a look - there is a HUGE column of black smoke clearly visible from the back garden (car park) .

half the sky is covered in black smoke.

We heard a rumbling and a MASSIVE boom, then the whole house shook violently - i thought the windows were going to break. I can't actually describe it - i thought it was an earthquake.

pictures:





n.b. - i've not used the zoom on my camera. That's really what it looks like. Smells bad too. If it felt like that from here, i can't imagine what it felt like nearer to.

We're about 5 miles away.