I didn’t take my digital camera out and about with me today, but if I had, I could have taken some slightly unclear photos of a smoke filled northern sky.
I didn’t hear an explosion at 6am this morning, although I did hear an alarm clock sometime around that time. Disappointing, since the explosion was supposedly audible as far away as Holland.
The 24 hour news networks are going mad of course, with round the clock coverage. Very colourful pictures, but not a great deal to report as the authorities have decided to let the oil burn down before putting the fire out.
In the meantime my ever-so intelligent countrymen are heading to petrol stations to panic buy fuel. Yes – one oil depot going out of business is going to bring the country to a grinding halt. It’s not like we have fleets of lorry-type machines that can carry tanks of fuel. You could call them “fuel tankers” if we did. They could carry petrol all around the country to ensure that everyone can buy fuel in the forthcoming days, weeks and months.
Then there’s all the worry about what’s going to be put into the atmosphere. Well guess what? All that fuel was going to be burnt anyway. Not all in one place at one time, certainly. But all that soot and carbon dioxide was going to end up in the atmosphere.
On News 24 the BBC showed footage taken by a pair of “amateur documentary makers” who rushed towards the blaze this morning to capture close-up footage of the blast. Eventually good sense got the better of them and they pulled out. The BBC presenter mumered something about it being a problem in a society where nearly everyone’s mobile phone is capable of taking video, with people heading into dangerous situations to get their footage on TV. Of course he said this after we’d spent five minutes gawping at their exclusive footage. And this is the same channel that had been soliciting pictures and video from viewers all day long (as had Sky News).
Still my favourite line of the day: “The huge black plume can be seen from space.” A bit like car licence plates in that respect then?