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Didcot Power Station collapse: families and industry await answers eight years on

22 Feb 2024 By Ian Weinfass

“As a family it’s like we’re stuck in 2016,” says Sadie Cresswell, as the eighth anniversary of the building collapse that killed her father approaches.

She has no more understanding of why it happened than she did at the time.

“Unfortunately, it’s very much the same year on year,” she tells Construction News .

Her father Ken Cresswell, 57, was one of four men who were killed in the Didcot Power Station collapse on 23 February 2016.

A joint police and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) probe was launched in its aftermath. It is the longest-running investigation in the history of Thames Valley Police.

This week the force confirmed it is still investigating potential corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter and health and safety offences, and said it has carried out “further suspect and key witness” interviews.

No one has ever been arrested or charged in relation to the deaths.

Ken Cresswell, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, was an experienced operative and passionate about his work. “He absolutely loved it, he’d come home and tell us about it and we were sat there like ‘what’s he on about now?’” Sadie Cresswell, who was 24 in 2016, and is now 32, recalls.

He was “a family man with a big heart”, who left behind a wife, three daughters and two granddaughters, none of whom have had any information about what happened to him, she adds.

Ken Cresswell was working alongside Coleman & Company colleagues Chris Huxtable, 34, John Shaw, 61, and Mick Collings, 53, as they prepared the 10-storey high boiler house at Didcot Power Station for demolition.

The workers were weakening the steel legs of the 100-metre-long structure by cutting them. The building was scheduled to be demolished with explosives a week-and-a-half later but collapsed on 23 February 2016, resulting in the deaths of the four men and injuring five others.

Mick Collings was found dead shortly afterwards, while the bodies of Ken Cresswell, Chris Huxtable and John Shaw were not recovered until August and September 2016.

No answers have yet been provided to the families – or the wider demolition industry – about why the building collapsed.

“First and foremost, we need justice for my dad, John, Chris and Mick, and secondly we need to make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” says Sadie Cresswell.

Of their colleagues on site that day who survived she adds: “Can you imagine hearing that noise and next minute it was on the floor? It went from being stood to just boom and a cloud of dust. Can you imagine that happening at work? Running for your life? How do you deal with that?”

Tia Huxtable is now 19 years old. She was 11 when her father Chris Huxtable, from Swansea, died.

Chris Huxtable with his daughter Tia

She previously said she felt like investigators were “dragging their feet” over the incident, but now, following another meeting with them, she has changed her view.

“They are doing the best they can for the best outcome,” she says. “I know how much time and effort has been put in since day one. Even though it seems like a lifetime and like they are dragging their feet, they’re really trying their best.

“Hopefully the time it’s taken will bring the best outcome and justice for us families, the four poor men who lost their lives and also the [other] men who have had traumatic experiences.”

Huxtable, who previously described her father as “the most loving, heart-warming person you could have ever met”, says she loves and misses him and that on the eighth anniversary the affected families will be remembering “our amazing memories we have of our loved ones”.

She says she hopes and prays that they receive answers within the next two years about “why our loved ones went to work that day and didn’t get to come home to their families”.

“We won't give up without a fight,” she adds.

Like Ken Cresswell, John Shaw, 61, was from Rotherham in South Yorkshire.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion says it is insulting that families have been waiting so long for answers.

“The overarching theme of the Didcot tragedy is delay,” she says. “Delay in getting the men out and home, delays in gathering evidence, delay in communicating with the families, and now the ultimate insult – an eight-year delay in securing justice and finding out the truth of what caused the collapse. Still, we have no court date.”

Thames Valley Police, however, stresses that it is a complicated investigation. It says the dedicated investigation team it and the HSE formed immediately after the collapse is continuing to look at possible corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter and health and safety offences.

Deputy chief constable Ben Snuggs adds: “As always our thoughts remain with the families of Michael Collings, Ken Cresswell, Christopher Huxtable and John Shaw following the loss of their loved ones.

“Thames Valley Police, together with the Health and Safety Executive, remains totally committed to rigorously investigating the collapse, and I am very conscious of the time it is taking to investigate those circumstances.”

He adds: “This investigation is significant and complex with vast amounts of witness, digital and physical evidence, and we continue to make good progress with further suspect and key witness interviews.

“We are also in close liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service, and continue to provide appropriate updates to key stakeholders and interested parties.

“It is our responsibility and duty to investigate thoroughly, following all reasonable lines of enquiry, and we will do everything we can to provide answers to the families.”

Coleman & Company, which is now known as Colemans, said in its latest set of accounts in November that it “continues to cooperate” with the investigation.

It added: “Based upon rigorous inquiries undertaken by independent specialists and on professional advice, the directors do not believe the company is responsible for the cause of the incident.”

RWE, the client behind the works, said in a statement: “We understand the significance of the eighth anniversary of the boiler house collapse at Didcot Power Station, and our thoughts remain with the families of the four men who died tragically as a result of the collapse.

“We continue to cooperate fully with the Health and Safety Executive and Thames Valley Police. However, while the investigations are ongoing it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”

Colemans has been contacted for comment.

Didcot Power Station timeline:

March 2013:  Didcot A Power Station decommissioned. Owner RWE nPower decides to demolish the structures on site and clear land for redevelopment.

July 2014:   Three famous cooling towers are demolished by Coleman & Company  – an event that is national news and livestreamed online in a bid to stop too many people gathering at the edge of the exclusion zone set up for the purpose.

23 February 2016:  Ten days before its scheduled demolition date, part of the site’s boiler house  collapses onto three workers while they are preparing it . Michael Collings, 53, from Cleveland, is found dead soon afterwards, while three workers are treated as missing. Five others are taken to hospital with injuries. At least 47 people are treated for dust inhalation.

2 March 2016:  In  an interview with  CN,  Coleman & Company managing director Mark Coleman says it is hugely important that whatever went wrong “isn’t hidden”, noting how many other power station demolition jobs are scheduled both in England and worldwide.

May 2016:  Work to recover the missing men is  halted due to “safety fears” .

July 2016:   Preparations begin  to demolish remainder of boiler house using explosives put in place by robots.

31 August 2016:  The body of Chris Huxtable is found.

7 September 2016:  The  body  of Ken Cresswell is found.

9 September 2016:  The  body  of John Shaw is found.

June 2017:  Replacement contractor Brown and Mason begins work to clear the boiler house units that did not collapse.

31 January 2018:  Thames Valley Police  says  it has obtained 1,921 witness statements so far and is continuing to investigate potential offences including corporate manslaughter.

23 February 2018:  Thames Valley Police  says  the investigation could take several more years to conclude and has already cost “several million pounds”.

23 February 2019:  Police announce  870 tonnes of material is being examined  at the HSE’s forensic facility in Buxton, Derbyshire. The site of the collapse is no longer the main base of the investigation.

11 April 2019:  HSE  awards contract  to transport a “substantial amount” of extra evidence to the forensic lab.

18 August 2019:  Remaining  cooling towers demolished  by Brown and Mason. Three onlookers suffer minor injuries and one is taken to hospital when shell protection attached to one of the towers lands on a nearby power line. The HSE  later  says the event was unforeseeable.

9 February 2020:  Final chimney demolished by Brown and Mason.

23 February 2021:  Police say they  remain “unfaltering in their duty”  to investigate the collapse.

November 2021:  McLaren  wins contract  to build data centre on the site of the former power station.

23 February 2024: Joint police and HSE investigation will enter its ninth year.

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RWE Generation SE

Rwe’s didcot b power station powers the region for 25 years.

• Didcot B Power Station celebrates 25 years of generation
• Station was one of the first large scale Combined Cycle Gas Turbines with a high efficiency in the UK

Swindon, 19 July 2022

This month marks 25 years of operations at Didcot B power plant, an efficient, gas-fired power station, which has been in commercial operation since 1997. The station is powered by natural gas and uses Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs) to produce electricity.

Didcot B can produce around 1.500  (Megawatts)  MW   enough power to meet the needs of two million households. The plant was originally designed and operated as a ‘base load’ plant – meaning it operated 24/7, however in recent years has changed operations to fit in with the market and more renewable technologies on the grid system.

The 58 strong team onsite came together to mark the occasion with a cake. The stations longest serving team member is Jason Tame who has worked across both Didcot A and Didcot B for 27 years and who had the honour of cutting the birthday cake.

Didcot B Power Station is in a unique location in the grid system and plays an essential role in supporting the UK’s energy transition as it can flexibly power up and down, provides excellent availability and is key to ensuring security of supply across the UK. The station operates at an efficiency of around 55% and has generated around 250  Terawatt hours  TWhrs of power to the grid whilst operational.  

Commenting on operations at the site, Taco Douma, RWE Generation Director of Gas, said, “Congratulations to all colleagues for this important and beautiful milestone. Let’s make sure that together we add a whole lot of extra successful years to the life of the site and station!”

Ed Jamieson Didcot Operations and Maintenance manager added, “I am incredibly proud of the team at Didcot B, it’s down to them that we remain competitive, efficient and ready to respond to the ever changing market demands. Most of us live locally and would like to extend our thanks to the local community and liaison group who have supported us over the years.”

 D idcot B will continue to have a valuable role to play in security of supply well into the 2030s, the site remains an attractive location for future green generation innovation with excellent transportation links, gas and electrical connections and availably of cooling water.

For images please go to RWE’s media library https://rwe.canto.global/b/GFLHT .

• Press release

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Success in german offshore wind auction: rwe secures two sites with a total capacity of 4 gigawatts in the north sea, rwe commissions 14-megawatt pilot electrolyser: green h2 production commences in lingen, germany.

• Books + Ideas

Didcot A Power Station

Last week we went on a tour of Didcot A. Commissioned around 1970, this is a coal-fired power station capable of generating around 2GW, with four 500MW units. The tour lasted more than two hours and we got to see at least something of most of the parts of the station. (We also got to see an introductory video which was aimed more at school students and dragged on a bit. This did mention global warming, but spent more time talking about nPower's renewable energy projects than the pressing need to stop burning coal...)

The guts of the station consists of four coupled systems.

The first involves the combustion of coal, augmented with up to 5% biomass, to produce heat. The coal is shipped from Canada and Siberia to the Severn, and thence via rail. We got to see a train moving very slowly through the unloading station, where the bottom of the carriages opens and dumps 70 tons of coal in a few seconds into an underground hopper/conveyor system that takes it to the storage area, while a man walked alongside manually locking the carriage bottoms closed again once they'd emptied.

The stockpiles were not so large at the moment, but still impressive. The coal from there is first milled down to a fine power and then injected into the boiler (which is started on propane and then run on oil up to 250MW, before being switched to coal). The station can burn up to 18,000 tons of coal a day.

The second is a closed system containing highly purified water, which is heated to steam in the boiler and then used to drive the turbines, in several stages (high, medium and low pressure). We didn't really see any of this, as we couldn't look inside the boilers or the turbine housings.

There's a weird perspective illusion with the cooling towers. They're about 100 metres high and seem huge seen from a distance - as in the top photo - where they loom over the entire Thames Valley. From the car park right next to them they seemed much smaller. And then at the end of the tour, after drizzle for two hours, the sun came out and we had a grand sunset behind them, in which they again seemed impressively large. (We weren't allowed to take photos at all inside the plant, unfortunately; the photo above is from the car park outside the fence.) The chimney on the boiler is the tallest part of the station, at 200 metres, but doesn't seem as impressive.

The fourth system is the actual electrical generation, which we saw something of in the rather noisy generator room. Small exciter generators are used to drive the central electromagnets in the rotors, which are driven by the turbines in hydrogen-cooled generators. The resulting electricity is transformed up to 400kV before being shunted to the National Grid operated substation just next door. (I need to go back and reread Wildi , but my copy is unfortunately in storage in Sydney.)

We got to see the control room, which looks like something out of an sf film. There's also a set of four Royals-Royce jet engines which can be started from batteries and provide black-start capability both to Didcot A and to the power "island" centred on it. (They can also be called on for peaking power when the prices are high enough.) And we got decent views of Didcot B next door. This is a more modern 1.5GW combined-cycle gas plant, which lacks large cooling towers because they couldn't get planning permission for them and instead uses 5MW driving fans in much smaller cooling towers.

Didcot A is due to be shut down within three years due to EU pollution regulation . Here it's not the carbon dioxide that is the problem (though the possibility of a higher price for carbon permits in the future must have weighed on the economics), but the sulphur dioxide, which nPower would have to remove from the emissions using limestone slurry if they they wanted to continue operating. That would only have made economic sense if the plant could have been expanded, apparently, but the railway system isn't capable of bringing in the additional coal that would require.

With a number of other coal-fired power stations due to close for the same reason, the United Kingdom needs to build nearly 8GW of new power generation just to replace them.

10 Comments »

This is as good an introduction to coal-fired power generation as any I can get. I thought coal is simply shoved into boilers to heat water, water turns into steam and in turn drives turbines, and condenser collects the residual steam to drive other turbines, and bingo electricity. There are technical terms I don't fully understand. Jet engines for black-start? Not sure how it works.

I have never been to a thermal fire power station. Even there was an open day, the nearest coal-fired station is simply too far away. ( I visited a crematorium on an open day.) I did visit the Snowy Mts. hydroelectric plant back in 1966 or 67 on excursion. I think there was just whirring of the turbines in the housing, nothing much exciting about that. It was so long ago.

It was on a late night fishing trip to Budgewoi that I gained a little knowledge of discharged cooling water from a power station. The fishing spot at Budgewoi is next to Lake Munmorah Power Station. The cooling water is discharged into the estuary. On that particular night over thirty years ago, I could feel the seawater was pleasantly warm. But the fishing was good, and there were many, many anglers. The warm water didn't do any harm to fishing activity. Like Didcot, Munmorah is also slated for closure.

Why there is a need to ship coal from Canada and Siberia? I thought there is plenty of high grade coal to be mined in Wales. What about Newcastle? A Welsh workmate told me coal is still plentiful in Wales. His grandfather, a coal miner lived to 70, a ripe old age for a coal miner. But he was bedridden, and had tubes and tubes to help him breathe. There was no compensation. I asked him about the pit ponies. This workmate told me the ponies were taken above ground only once per year. What a dreadful lot for men and beasts down in the mine shafts.

There is coal in Wales, but it's too expensive to extract. There are too many people - and national parks - for large-scale open-cut mining to be practical. (We went down the Big Pit coal mine at Blaenavon , which was quite an experience; we heard there about the horses that spent almost their entire lives underground.)

'Black Start' is an issue for all large power stations - as the amount of power required by the power station itself is considerable, many 10s of MW. If the grid is unavailable 'ie black', many power stations can't be started. Presumably the 'jet' turbines (read gas turbines) can generate enough electricity that they can power all the required auxiliary systems to get one of the main steam turbines on line. And remember a 'cold' turbine may take many hours or even days to bring on-line. (They have to wind up the speed slowly to allow the sag to be 'spun' out of the turbine shafts among other things), so that 'black start' power has to be sustained for possibly several days. It's not something you could do with batteries!

I seem to recall from a tour of the Eraring power station on Lake Macquarie, NSW that each 660Mw turbine there used 60Mw of it's own capacity just to keep itself running. Eraring can't black start - it requires power from the grid to boot-strap.

The pumped storage system at Dinorwig, which we visited last year, is also a black-start system - I guess hydro is easier because you don't need power to warm up a boiler, just to operate the sluice gates and maybe power stator electromagnets. The 50MW hydro station at the bottom of Warragamba Dam only runs when the dam is full, but it is capable of black-starting the NSW grid. (Vic or Hansen could probably tell us what the power from that would be used to start next.)

I am still learning, for example, I had no idea that almost 10% 0f the power generated is consumed on site. That is a big chunk. Still, it is better than the incandescent light or internal combustion which powered the family car.

Matthew, the black-start system is actually made up of jet engines, burning aviation fuel, and not gas turbines, at least according to this source .

"To cover black start conditions the station has four 27 MW Rolls Royce Avons. These can be at full load in less than 5 min ( just over 2 minutes is possible). They can also be used for peak lopping. Fuel is kerosene."

On aviation kerosene : I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong in the 1970s. One of my favourite past time was plane-spotting at a park looking directly on to the old Kai Tak Airport runway. Depending on the wind direction, I could smell the exhaust from the jets. The smell was quite unlike to kerosene used in household stoves. Is there much difference to the two grades of kero?

In Australia, where the National Electricity Market operates (that is QLD, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, and SA), System Restart Ancillary Services (SRAS or black start capability) is procured by competitive tender. The costs are apportioned on a 50/50 basis between market generators and market consumers. SRAS providers must by capable of starting or operating indefinitely without a grid connection and supplying at least 100MW to the grid within 60 minutes of a request from AEMO. At 50MW, the hydro generator at Warragamba Dam does not meet the requirements for SRAS currently (the operator, Eraring Energy says it currently isn't even connected to the grid).

BTW, I would have said jet engines are gas turbines, no matter the fuel they run on. In static power use, they are typically referred to as gas turbines and it's quite common for them to be able to accept both liquid and gas fuels, depending on what's cheaper and/or available.

Aha, they must have upgraded the requirements since I was told about Warragamba - that was probably thirty years ago. So how do modern SRAS work?

The last cold start of the NSW grid occurred on the 10th of June 1964 using the now-decommissioned 330MW Wangi Wangi coal-fired power station, which was the last of the coal-fired power stations that was small enough that its auxiliary loads could be met by diesel generators. The station was kept mothballed for many years "just in case", before finally being stripped in the 1990s. After that, the Snowy Scheme was typically considered the primary system restart option. I'm not convinced the Warragamba generator could ever have been used to cold-start - it came too late, is too small, and wasn't operated by the Electricity Commission.

SRAS works by diving the national grid (except NT and WA) up into seven islands and taking offers from the generating companies to provide a certain level of cold-startable generating capacity within those islands. Winning tenderers have to demonstrate their capability once a year, with a long list of tests performed and overseen by the AEMO.

As for how it's done, at least in NSW: there are several pumped storage systems around, in particular: Snowy (maybe 3.5GW), and Kangaroo Valley (about 240MW) - and there have also been a lot of stand-alone gas turbine plants built in recent years, some quite large: Colongra 660MW, Tallawarra 430MW, Uranquinty 640MW. Most of the gas turbine plants run intermittently starting when the market price gets high enough and helping to meet peak demand. Being able to claim SRAS is money for nothing for those guys. Also, some of the coal-fired power stations have gas turbine units that are only used to meet their own auxiliary loads to allow them to do a cold restart of their main units.

The SRAS price has doubled or tripled over the last decade - in 2012-13, the AEMO spent $55 million on SRAS across the market. There has only been one significant cold start within a region of the NEM in the last decade, and that was performed by importing power from neighbouring regions, rather than calling on SRAS.

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Plans submitted for two data centres on the Didcot power station site

The Oxford Magazine

Plans have been submitted for two data centres on the site of the Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire.

The centres will be located at Didcot A – where the former combined coal and oil plant was situated before it was decommissioned and demolished – and feature a two-storey 20,000 square metre building and a second, single-storey 8,700 square metre building.

The plans have been submitted under the name Willow Developments LLC. However, data centre news site DCD has reported that it is being driven by web giant Amazon.

According to a website set up for the scheme , the buildings will contain data halls, associated electrical and plant rooms, loading bay and storage space, office administration areas and screened plant at roof level).

The development will also include emergency generators, diesel tanks and filling area, electrical switch room, water sprinkler pump room and storage tank, a gatehouse or security building, site access, internal access road, plus hard standing and soft landscaping.

Willow Developments says that the plant operator has a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. The operator expects to procure renewable energy equivalent to the energy consumed on the site by enabling large-scale renewable energy projects in the UK, supplemented by solar panels on site.

The developer’s site cites the operator’s newest renewable energy project in Europe, which will be the largest wind corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) in the UK. Located in Scotland, once complete, the new wind project will provide 50 megawatts (MW) of new renewable capacity, with an expected generation of 168,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of clean energy annually – enough to power 46,000 UK homes.

Willow Developments previously submitted the plans to South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils in 2019, initially planning for both buildings to be 25 metres tall.

The firm then revised the height of one of the buildings in its second planning submission on 18 January this year. The height of data centre 1 will be 12 metres with generator flues going up to 15 metres.

Data centre 2 will be 21.5 metres high with generator flues taking it to 30 metres. It envisages that these buildings will be considerably less intrusive than the previous power station that once occupied the site.

A spokeswoman for the councils said: “The application is currently being processed, and we expect to make a decision in April of this year. We are unable to advise on who is the potential occupier of the site, should it receive planning permission.”

It is estimated that the development of the Data Centre 1 project will provide employment to up to 400 construction personnel over 15 months, and, on completion, 100 full-time highly skilled professionals will be employed by the data centre.

The proposed site cuts across the boundaries of both South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council and sits within the Didcot and Sutton Courtenay parish.

Comprising approximately 16hectares in the area (and part of the former Didcot A power station site), it lies between Milton Park and the western edge of Didcot. Most of the site (9.3ha) lies within South Oxfordshire, with the remainder (6.74ha) within the Vale of White Horse.

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AWS is building its next hyperscale data centre in Didcot

Didcot A power station has a new owner. On Thursday, Data Centre Dynamics broke the story that a previously unknown company is in the process of gaining approval to build two hyperscale data centres on the site of the decommissioned coal power plant just south of Oxford. 

The Didcot A power station was built in the 1970s, and its 655ft chimney was once one of the tallest structures in the UK, prior to its demolition last year. The station officially closed in March of 2013, with its cooling towers being demolished in two stages, the first of which being in 2014, and the second in 2019. 

Six workers were killed during the demolition process, which led to the Thames Valley Police bringing manslaughter and gross negligence charges against those involved. 

A New Beginning?

It is now known that the mysterious data centre operator - operating through a holding company called Willow Developments LLC - is Amazon Web Services (AWS) . 

AWS, acting through Willow Developments, initially proposed the project back in 2019. Planning permission documents include two 25 metre-tall data centre buildings, with a total floorspace of 54,760 square metres. 

Planning permission maps for the two new buildings - Courtesy of Willow Developments LLC

The first round of plans also included 52 diesel generators with a total capacity of 950,000 litres of diesel fuel to provide backup electricity to the centres in the case of an outage. Due to constraints placed by COVID-19, the proposal has been revised, lowering the facilities by one storey and reducing the number of generators to 34. 

AWS has been thoroughly cagey about its involvement in the project so far - a strategy adopted by most hyperscalers in order to avoid controversy as it pursues tax breaks and planning permissions. 

A site which only mentions Willow Developments has gone up, touting the benefits of data centres and their supposed positive impact on the Didcot economy, claiming that, “The development will assist in meeting the demand for cloud computing. It will also make a strong contribution to the UK’s fast-paced and growing digital economy.

“Locally, it will make a valuable addition to the Science Vale and its economy by assisting Science Vale and the Didcot Growth Accelerator Enterprise Zone in meeting their objectives and goals.” 

The site’s section on renewable energy, however, notes that the data centre operator behind the project “has a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. As part of this commitment, the operator is investing and innovating in efficiency in every aspect of their operations and is on a path to be powered by 100% renewable energy by 2025.” 

The site continues to note that, “The operator sees major investments in renewable energy as a critical step toward addressing its carbon footprint globally, and its newest renewable energy project in Europe will be the largest wind corporate power purchase agreement in the UK. Located in Scotland, once complete, the new wind project will provide 50MW of new renewable capacity with expected generation of 168,000MWh of clean energy annually, enough to power 46,000 UK homes."

These commitments line up perfectly with AWS’ own sustainability goals, and 2019 wind farm project in Scotland, pointing firmly towards them being the hyperscaler looking to move into the area. 

AWS keeps the locations of its sprawling network of hyperscale data centres a closely guarded secret. In 2018, Julian Assange’s organisation, WikiLeaks published a list of AWS facilities, including 38 in Virginia, eight in San Francisco, eight in Seattle, seven in Oregon, seven in Dublin, four in Germany and three in Luxembourg. 

It’s reasonable to assume that those figures have increased considerably in the past two years, given the global growth in hyperscale projects worldwide . 

Recent data published by Synergy Research found that, at the end of 2020, there were 597 hyperscale data centres active around the world, and that AWS, along with Google and Microsoft, accounted for more than half of the global total. 

“In addition to almost 600 operational data centres, we have visibility of a further 219 that are at various stages of planning or building, which is good news indeed for data centre hardware vendors and wholesale data centre operators,” commented John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. 

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1 dead, 3 missing as 'blast' at Didcot power station in Oxfordshire declared major incident

At least one person is dead and three are missing after an incident at the UK’s Didcot power plant, authorities say. Witnesses reported an explosion at the site, after which part of the building collapsed.

The incident occurred at the Didcot power station in Oxfordshire, around 70 miles (113 km) west of London.

Witnesses describe hearing a loud blast before part of the building collapsed. Several videos and photos posted on Twitter show plumes of smoke and dust rising into the air near the damaged building.

@TheOxfordMail #Didcot Walking the Dogs and this happens pic.twitter.com/Z5in0j6MLr — BLAINE MORRIS-SMITH (@BlaineMSmith) February 23, 2016

South Central Ambulance Service called the situation “ a major incident ” and said that six ambulances and two air ambulance had been dispatched to the site.

Reports on casualties still vary. Ed Vaizey, a Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, said one person had been killed in the incident and three more were missing. While sources at the fire-fighting service told AFP that one person had been killed and five had sustained injuries.

Rodney Rose, the deputy leader of Oxfordshire County Council, told the local Oxford Mail newspaper that at least one person has died in the incident.

“ I have been told there has been one fatality, but the rest is currently unknown. The fire service is there now and we are still trying to find out if this was a demolition. At the moment this is being treated as a collapsed building, not an explosion, but there was a bang, ” she said as quoted by the Oxford Mail.

Our reporters @OxMailSophieG and @OxMailMichaelR are at the scene in #Didcot https://t.co/GmTz1sMifl pic.twitter.com/uip6FuEr0c — Oxford Mail (@TheOxfordMail) February 23, 2016

BREAKING: one person has been killed after building collapsed at #Didcot Power Station @ https://t.co/AmZmNtpJLB pic.twitter.com/RJTWellM7G — Lowlands Solutions (@LowlandsSN) February 23, 2016

Very concerned about terrible events at Didcot power station. Praying for workers and their families. — Ed Vaizey (@edvaizey) February 23, 2016

❗️Suivi #Didcot #explosion > D'autres photos des lieux après l'explosion pic.twitter.com/G3tDTfO07p — DirectActus (@DirectActus) February 23, 2016

This is the aftermath from the #Didcot power station explosion... pic.twitter.com/oJ1kxUKAkh — Elliot Wagland (@elliotwagland) February 23, 2016

Local resident Bill McKinnon believes that the explosion occurred in the building that housed the power-producing generators.

“ About 4 o’clock, when I heard the explosion and the very loud rumbling, by the time I had got up and looked out of the window, there was a huge cloud of dust which came through and over our village. When that had cleared, I noticed that half of the old power station, where they used to keep the generators, half of that was missing ,” he told The Telegraph.

Another witness named David Cooke also said that “ the main turbine hall collapsed in a pile of dust ,” British media report.

“ It totally obscured the towers and must have drifted across the roads and main rail line. What’s left looks a tangled mess ,” he told The Guardian.

The Didcot A plant, which was a dual-fired power station launched in the 1970s, closed down in 2013. Demolition of the station was due to be complete later this year, though no activities were scheduled for Tuesday, according to the British media.

My niece took this footage of the aftermath at Didcot Power Station #Didcot pic.twitter.com/Ihz4phjNPf — Karen Farrington (@KJF1) February 23, 2016

The collapsed Didcot A power plant is located near the active natural-gas Didcot B power station, which was unaffected by the incident, RWE, the energy giant that owns the power stations, confirmed to the Telegraph.

The paper also claimed that the accident at the Didcot A plant occurred as contractors from the firm Coleman and Company were on site preparing for the demolition of the remaining three cooling towers, which was scheduled for next month.

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