A search and rescue operation to find three people missing after part of a power station collapsed in England is being hampered because of safety concerns, emergency services have said.
One person was killed and five others are in hospital after a concrete and steel building at the derelict Didcot A site in south Oxfordshire came down at around 4pm on Tuesday while it was being prepared for demolition.
A further 50 people were treated for dust inhalation while emergency crews with sniffer dogs worked into the night searching for the missing, an operation that could take “several days”.
“The remainder of the building is very unsafe, which is hampering the search. This is a very difficult situation with a very unstable structure,” Oxfordshire assistant chief fire officer Simon Furlong said .
“The safety of emergency service personnel has to remain our priority, while recognising how hard this must be for families waiting for news of loved ones overnight.”
A cordon has been placed around the scene as the rescue operation continues.
Pictures from the scene showed a significant chunk of a building in the defunct Didcot A site has collapsed, with a large amount of debris on the ground.
A GMB union official said that workers were preparing two boilers for demolition in the coming week, and that is believed to have led to the collapse of the building.
People in Oxfordshire have been asked to consider whether they require emergency hospital care after a major incident was declared.
Witness David Cooke, whose company, Thames Cryogenics, has a building overlooking the power station, said: “Our building shook and as we looked out of the window. The end of the main turbine hall collapsed in a huge pile of dust.
“It totally obscured the towers and must have drifted across the roads and main rail line. What’s left looks a tangled mess. The dust was hanging over the area for five to 10 minutes.”
Didcot A opened in 1970 as a coal-fired power station and was later converted so it could also generate power from natural gas.
It ceased generation in March 2013 and hundreds gathered to watch when three of its enormous cooling towers were blown up in July 2014 after dominating the town’s skyline for more than four decades.
The incident comes 16 months after a major fire struck a cooling tower at Didcot B in October 2014.
The blaze affected 50 per cent of the station output — supplying a million homes.
PA