Gas explosion reported in Hammersmith, London

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Map highlighting London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Image: Morwen.

Wikinews has learned that an explosion was heard in the Riverside Gardens area of Hammersmith, London, England at around 11:15 a.m. local time.

According to reports, an apartment on Macbeth Street exploded due to a gas leak. An official with the gas company was reporting to the scene after a neighbor called about a gas leak. When the official arrived, the apartment exploded. No major injuries were reported, but at least five people on scene at the time of the explosion were treated for symptoms of shock. No one was inside the apartment. At the time, nearly 100 residents were evacuated from the area.

"The gas board were called by the neighbour to a smell of gas in the road. The engineer was directly in front, but luckily he had gone into his van to get his detection equipment when the flat exploded," said Mark McHenry, the senior official with the fire department.

A video had shown smoke and dust rising from an apartment block, with black smoke from a fire several minutes later. At approximately 12:00 p.m., no more smoke was seen rising from the area.

Nearly a whole block of apartments were severely damaged in the blast. One witness told BBC that "when you looked down Macbeth Street you could see bits of buildings, glass, wood, curtains, strewn all over the street."

Authorities believe a gas main had been punctured causing the leak, but an investigation is ongoing.

Sources

This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details.

• Dan Hodges "'Massive explosion' at flat in Hammersmith". Ealing Gazette, August 13, 2009
• "Explosion causes damage to flats". BBC News Online, August 13, 2009
• "Breaking News: Explosion Reported In Hammersmith". londonist, August 13, 2009
  

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable. Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators. Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections. Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.