On the 11th of May, 2004, a huge explosion shattered the quiet of a hot spring day in
the Maryhill district of Glasgow, Scotland.
The blast had taken place on the premises of the Stockline Plastics Factory, almost
completely destroying the facility’s main building and trapping at least a dozen workers.
It was a disaster that had come without warning… but one which, an investigation would reveal,
could certainly have been avoided.
The ICL Plastics Factory was a four-storey facility in Maryhill, Glasgow.
The building was occupied by a number of different companies, all of them subsidiaries of the
holding company ICL Plastics Limited.
Stockline Plastics was one of these subsidiaries, with its main business being the distribution
and supply of several different kinds of plastic.
Other subsidiaries of ICL Plastics handled other parts of the business, such as marketing
or manufacture.
Because of its prominence, though, locals generally referred to the factory as the Stockline
Plastics Factory.
The main building was built in the 1860s and was originally used as a textile mill, then
later as a paper mill.
As its purpose changed over the years it was expanded and modified.
ICL Plastics first occupied the site in 1969, and made a number of significant changes.
Gas tanks and pipes were installed to supply gas ovens used in the plastics manufacturing
process.
The roof was replaced, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the company purchased more
buildings in the vicinity to expand their operations.
In 1973 the yard in front of the building was raised in order to reduce the impact of
flooding during rainy weather.
Rubble infill and concrete were used to add an extra 1.1 metres (or 3.6 feet) to the yard…
completely burying several gas pipes in the process.
By the early 21st century, the building was typically occupied by between 60 and 100 members
of staff on a daily basis; everyone from factory workers to company directors.
At around midday on the 11th of May, 2004, around 60 people were in the building when,
without warning, a massive explosion took place.
Gary Gentles, a manager at a nearby community centre, later gave this account of the blast:
“It was surreal.
I was standing outside the halls on a nice hot summer’s day and all of a sudden there
was a loud bang.
I had never heard something so loud in my life.
My first thought was a lorry had come off the road...
Then I realised it was the plastics factory.
I thought it must be a fire.
It has to just be a fire.
But then a couple of seconds later everything went silent.
And then I realised something serious had happened.”
The explosion had, indeed, been extremely serious.
It had caused the majority of the Stockline Plastics factory to collapse instantly, with
only one corner remaining intact.
Passers-by immediately approached the wreckage, and helped several workers extricate themselves
from the uppermost layers of rubble.
A Patient Transport Ambulance that happened to be nearby was the first emergency vehicle
to arrive on scene.
Although the crew had limited resources to tackle a disaster of this type, there were
able to begin triage and start co-ordinating the rescue operation.
In doing so they significantly expedited the response, potentially saving dozens of lives.
Fire crews soon arrived on scene.
It became clear that at least a dozen people were trapped under the rubble, and so efforts
began to pinpoint their exact location.
Thermal-imaging equipment, fibre-optic cameras, sniffer dogs and carbon dioxide detectors
(which could detect the by-products of breathing) were used to try and locate the victims.
Some of those trapped in the rubble were also able to shout for help, of use their mobile
phones to help rescuers locate them.
On the first day, seven people were pulled, alive, from the rubble.
Around 300 firefighters and paramedics remained on site, supported by many other organisations,
including the volunteer group International Rescue Corps – a group with prior experience
of supporting rescue and recovery operations in the aftermath of earthquakes.
Resources from across the country poured in to Glasgow to help with the rescue effort.
A sniffer dog team was sent from Lincolnshire, and a Sea King rescue helicopter from North
Yorkshire was also made available.
As survivors were discovered they were transported to hospitals across Glasgow.
Concerned relatives had begun to gather in the area, and the local Maryhill Community
Central Halls were set up as a refuge for them, as well as a place to treat minor injuries
onsite.
Local shops and businesses donated supplies to allow relatives to remain on site.
Many families stayed at the community centre for the entire duration of the rescue operation.
The search continued through the night and into a second day.
It was an arduous process, with several firefighters treated for heat exhaustion after working
long hours in hot and humid conditions, and in the presence of plastic fumes.
After four days of intensive searching, the likelihood of finding any further survivors
was considered minimal, and the operation was brought to an end.
In total, seven people had been declared dead at the scene, while a further two died from
their injuries in hospital.
33 people had been injured, 15 seriously.
As the rescue effort wound down, an investigation began.
Initial reports suggested that gas ovens inside the factory were the cause of the explosion,
while other accounts suggested that there hadn’t been an explosion at all, and the
building had just collapsed under the weight of heavy machinery stored on the uppermost
floor.
Neither of these theories, in the end, were correct.
Authorities spent the ten weeks after the explosion gathering evidence for their report.
120 police officers and Health and Safety executives were tasked with sifting the rubble.
1,000 bags of company paperwork were seized and examined, and over a thousand witness
statements were taken.
This investigative process would eventually lead to the prosecution of ICL Plastics at
a criminal trial, and a massive public inquiry.
The public inquiry was held at the Maryhill Community Central Halls, where the relatives
of those injured and killed in the blast had waited for news in the days following the
disaster.
So many wished to attend this inquiry, that the Scottish Courts Service oversaw a complete
renovation of the venue to ensure that it could accommodate them.
Through these proceedings, the true cause of the blast was revealed.
When the yard outside the factory had been raised in 1973 it had buried pipes that delivered
Liquid Petroleum Gas (or LPG) to the factory’s gas ovens.
The sections of piping which remained accessible had undergone routine inspections…
but the buried sections had not.
Over time, they had deteriorated, until a leak eventually formed, leading to a build-up
of gas in a mostly unused basement area of the building.
Risk assessments of the site should have considered the danger posed by buried pipes… but they
did not.
Because the pipes were not visible, and had not been accessible for several decades, it
simply did not occur to inspectors to consider their condition – especially when there
were numerous visible risks to occupy them.
For example, during many visits inspectors had prioritised ensuring the safety of the
LPG storage tanks, forgetting in the process to also consider the pipework that lead to
and from them.
A report on the disaster noted that, “for everyone involved, hazards that were out of
sight were out of mind.”
The source of the spark that had ignited the leaked gas was not definitively determined.
A cigarette lighter found in the rubble suggested that it might have been caused by a worker
lighting a cigarette… but equally the gas could have been ignited by the activation
of a non-spark-protected light switch.
ICL Plastics and another subsidiary company plead guilty to four Health & Safety breaches,
and were each fined £200,000.
Accepting this judgement, they issued a statement expressing their regret:
“While others may have played their part in the mistakes that led to the underground
pipe being essentially ignored, both companies and the individuals responsible for overseeing
the health and safety of the employees do not seek to escape responsibility for their
own shortcomings.
It has been said before and should be said again that both companies apologise and express
deep remorse for those who have been affected by the tragedy.”
It was recommended by the public inquiry that all sites which used underground metallic
pipework be identified, and undertake work to replace the pipes.
Additionally it recommended that any industry which made use of Liquid Petroleum Gas undergo
extra safety inspections.
The accident had been avoidable, and these measures aimed to ensure that it would not
be repeated.
In 2007, ICL Plastics set up a memorial garden to honour the nine people that died as a result
of the explosion.
They were: 49-year-old Margaret Brownlie, 32-year-old Annette Doyle, 52-year-old Peter
Ferguson, 41-year-old Thomas McAulay, 60-year-old James Stewart McColl, 27-year-old Tracey McErlane,
45-year-old Kenneth Murray, 31-year-old Timothy Smith, and 34-year-old Ann Trench.
The garden sits today just a short distance away from the rebuilt Stockline Plastics factory
– a reminder that even hazards which cannot be seen, still have the power to kill.