Didcot Power Station Demolition Means Search For Missing Bodies Can Resume
These dramatic pictures show the demolition of the final section of Didcot Power Station’s boiler house after it partially collapsed earlier this year, leaving four people dead.
The remainder of the decommissioned site was brought down on Sunday using a remote demolition, in a unique operation using remote-controlled robots.
Searches for three of the men killed in its collapse are now set to continue.
Crumbling - four people were killed when the structure unexpectedly crumbled in February (Picture: SWNS)
Demolition workers Ken Cresswell, 57, and John Shaw, 61, both from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, and Chris Huxtable, 34, from Swansea, were trapped under 20,000 tonnes of rubble when the structure unexpectedly crumbled on February 23.
Four people died in the disaster, but only one body - that of 53-year-old Michael Collings - has been recovered so far.
Unstable - the building was too unstable to be approached (Picture: SWNS)
The building - which was due for demolition when it partially collapsed - has been too unstable to be approached and a 50-metre exclusion zone was set up around what was left of it.
Plastic explosives attached to the structure were detonated and once the site is considered safe, teams will resume searching the remnants of the plant for the first time since May.
Searches can now continue at the site for the first time since May (Picture: SWNS)
Roland Alford, explosives contractor at the power station, said the four-month delay in completing the demolition was necessary on safety grounds as nothing like it had ever been attempted before.
He said: "It was almost unthinkable to send people to work underneath there and place charges, given the fact the building could come down at any moment - you legally can’t justify that.“
(Main picture: PA)
