Search begins for missing after Cheshire mill explosion

Smouldering ruins at the scene of an explosion at a wood flour mill in the village of Bosley, Cheshire are still being doused as firefighters begin the search for four workers caught in the blast and blaze.

Three men and a woman may have been working in the upper floors of the four-storey building at the time of the incident.

Scattered across the site are fire engines, incident response units, pumps, ambulances and police cars.

Firefighters say temperatures reached up to 1,000 degrees centigrade as an inferno engulfed the mill, which is set amid fields on a country lane in the village of Bosley.

The River Dane, which runs alongside the mill, is now being pumped of its water for use on the still smoking ruins, while parts of the river itself turned petrol blue from the 5,000 litres of kerosene released in the blast that leached into the water.

Firemen were met by a river of fire as they arrived at the site yesterday morning, as the inflammable liquid leaked from cylinders and ignited in the blaze.

Dozens of firemen are still at work, about 100 in all, as the site remains thick with acrid smoke.

Search teams in orange uniforms and wearing face masks and helmets are now carefully removing debris, hoping to find any sign of life in voids within it, as ambulance crew stand by.

High volume pumps are being used, with thick hoses criss-crossing the site from the banks of the river up a narrow lane to the mill, where six high-platform jets are still dowsing the site from above.

Pumps are also hosing down the base of buildings and silos, which are still full of wood flour and still smoking.

A succession of cordons remain in place, one of which counts everyone going in and coming off the inner site, in case of further explosions.

Across the road leading into the mill, the windows and window frames have been blown out of some of the homes in a row of terraced cottages, with a piece of iron sheeting blasted from the mill coming to rest on one roof.

‘Thoughts with families’

Alex Waller, head of service delivery at Cheshire fire and rescue service said: “Our thoughts are with the families of the missing. At the moment we are really doing all we can.

“We have been working around the clock, overnight, we have not scaled back resources and we are not going to do so.

“We are going to keep going until we find or locate any casualties or any people.

“As you can see, it is really difficult, really challenging, really dangerous.

“We are painstakingly moving through all of the wreckage, the search and rescue teams will pull back any wreckage, we have got heavy lifting gear, we will pull that back, very very gently and see if we can find anybody underneath.

“The dogs will search an area, then we move in, and slowly peel the debris away.”

Tony Brown, a station manager with Merseyside fire and rescue service, and acting search and rescue adviser, said: “The process is slow and steady.

“We have got a rough idea of where the people are, from intelligence before the incident and from running the search dogs over the pile. We are not going to give up, in the hope we do find somebody.”

PA