Scottish disaster narrowly avoided
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• A Blue Circle cement truck carrying ammonium nitrate, the highly explosive fertiliser and other volatile material caught fire in Scotland last week, but disaster was narrowly averted.
The truck went up in flames near the company's quarry in Dunbar, Scotland.
A leading explosives expert says the potential detonation would have been like "a bomb bigger than anything dropped on us during the war".
Sidney Alford, who is campaigning for a ban on ammonium nitrate travelling through the Channel Tunnel, adds: "This would have been one hell of a bang. It proves that this is not a notional thing which will never arise, as has been claimed."
A Blue Circle spokesman says that the vehicle was adapted to carry explosives. "We do not know how the fire started," he says. "It is the subject of a full inquiry".
The local fire brigade managed to bring the fire under control and the driver was unharmed by the incident.