U.K. INQUIRY FINDING

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 17

U.K. INQUIRY FINDING

‘ f N.Z.P. A. Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, May 13. “A coincidence of a number of unlikely errors” is > blamed for the death of 28 i men in Britain’s worst peacetime explosion, on June 1 of i last year. The disaster at a chemical ■ plant in eastern England was ■ caused by the failure of a i temporary pipe, and the • blame for that must be ■ shared by many individuals : at board of directors’ level : and below, a court of inquiry

says after hearing 173 witnesses and experts. • The explosion demolished ' Nypro’s chemical works at iFlixborough, and devastated

,a large area. More than 30C0 [people from nearby villages 'were temporarily taken to !safety. The inquiry court’s report says: “June 1 was a Saturday, and had the explosion occurred on an ordinary working day, the number of casualties would have been much greater.” The temporary pipe was installed as a bypass linking two reactors at the plant, jointly owned by the National Coal Board and Dutch State Mines, and the report says the fact that bridging the gap presented design problems was not appreciated by anyone at Nypro.