26 June, 2006

Fire, Evacuation and risk of Explosion - Kings Place, York Way, Kings Cross

Okay, safely home now, just grabbing some lunch...But just to cover what I do know again, at about ten o'clock today we were told by colleagues that there was a fire in the "Kings Place" building site and the offices were being evacuated...I didn't hang about...I just grabbed my bag, locked my PC and walked out of there (pictures to be had)...down at street level lots of policemen were busy blocking everything off and trying to get people to leave the area -
Kings Place - Explosion #1
(Crinan Street, the building site is clearly visible at the end)
Kings Place - Explosion #2
- diverting all the traffic away from York Way down towards the Caledonian Road via Wharfdale Road -
Kings Place - Explosion #3
- which was slowly filling with emergency services vehicles...the only route I could think of that might not be blocked off by this stage was along the canal, so I trotted up the Caledonian Road, went down onto the tow path through the community garden and snuck along until this copper blocked my path, he was turning everyone away...
Kings Place - Explosion #4
...so I retraced my steps about 20 yards and found a gate, this took me up to a little housing estate where I found another path into a garden about 2 meters above the tow path (much nearer) where I got this shot -
Kings Place - Explosion #5
- but there was no further sign of incident, look closely though and you can see a number of cylinders which could be full of gas (which is why we all had to get out of there)...doesn't seem to be much in the news right now, but hopefully that's good news...would hate to think anyone was hurt or killed...

Update - The BBC has a shot of the fire (must be on the other side!) and news that Kings Cross station is closed (as well as our office and other local businesses)...(thanks to the annonymous commentator ;)

Update update - Looks like the rest of the press are slowly catching up with the news, one person went to hospital with severe burns, 630-odd people evacuated from Kings Cross station (which is shut), half of the 8th floor of Kings Place is "damaged" and depending on who you read, between 20 and 30 firefighters are on the scene...

Update update update - Hello nurture readers... (a link to this posting made it into our corporate blog ;)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Found this on BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5117264.stm

Unknown said...

Excellent!

Unknown said...

"Scoop" Mayer is on the scene.

bigbluemeanie said...

Cool reporting, thanks for the photos!

Shablagoo! said...

eek! Great reportage!

Unknown said...

*fanks*