Much of southeast England was bracing on Sunday night to experience black toxic rain as oily soot from the burning of almost 16 million liters of oil, aircraft fuel and petrol at the oil depot at Hemel Hempstead, just north of London, started to fall over the region and the plume of gases reached ground level in some areas.
According to the UK Meteorological Office, a cold-weather front was expected to stretch across the region, bringing rain and forcing the pollutants from the fires down to ground level.
The intensity of the fires throughout most of Sunday, combined with very light winds and a high pressure system, carried much of the pollution 2,750m above an area stretching at one point from East Anglia to Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire.
PHOTO: AP
Health experts warned that the elderly, asthmatics and anyone with respiratory problems should take great care not to inhale the fumes, which they expected to worsen as the fires weakened and were unable to force the smoke so high.
Warren Lenney, of the British Lung Foundation, said the consequences of inhaling soot particles from the acidic thick black smoke could be "unpleasant."
"The trouble is there are all sorts of different chemicals in the smoke. Petroleum products are known to produce a whole series of nasty acidic chemicals, as well as carbon monoxide," he said.
Lenney, who is a senior pediatrician at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in the English midlands, said side-effects could include coughing, difficulty breathing and a lack of concentration as oxygen levels in the brain dropped.
A police spokesman said: "We are advising people to close their windows and doors and to go immediately to a doctor if they breathe in the fumes."
A spokeswoman for Total UK, the British arm of the US oil firm which half owns 60 percent of the site, said petrol and kerosene as well as some diesel and crude oil were held there, but she did not know exactly what had caught fire.
Ivan Vince, a health, safety and environmental specialist for ASK Consultants, said that he believed the smoke plume was not so dangerous at present because it was being lifted high above the ground and would be greatly diluted before it returned to ground level.
But he warned: "When the fire is dying, the smoke is less buoyant and so can cause a local hazard."
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