Buncefield Oil Depot Fire Images

Images of the Fire in Hemel Hempstead on the morning of the disaster. In St. Albans Crown court today, five companies were held responsible for the huge explosion at Buncefield oil depot must pay fines and costs of more than £9 million (13.8 million dollars, 10.6 million euros), a court ruled on Friday.
French oil giant Total received the stiffest penalty for the incident in Hertfordshire five years ago, being ordered to pay a fine of £3.6 million plus costs of £2.6 million. The December 11, 2005 explosion measured 2.4 on the Richter Scale and is considered one of the biggest blasts in peacetime Europe. It was reportedly heard as far away as France and Belgium. It was also one of Britain's most costly industrial disasters -- and only the fact that the explosion took place early on a Sunday prevented a greater human catastrophe. "Had the explosion happened during a working day, the loss of life may have been measured in tens or even hundreds," judge David Calvert-Smith said as he sentenced the firms at St Albans Crown Court in Hertfordshire. Jurors heard that the extent of the environmental damage was still not known and its effects could last for decades. Hertfordshire Oil Storage was fined £1.45 million plus one million pounds costs, while British Pipeline Agency was fined £300,000 plus £480,000 costs. Unconfirmed estimates of the potential lose of life had it been on a working day were put at up to 3,000 people could have died and up to 15,000 people could have been injured if all of the workers were in the Industrial estate.
Motherwell Control Systems 2003 and TAV Engineering were both fined £1,000 each and each were ordered to pay £500 in costs.