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Bomb fears for Chunnel

1st June 1995, Page 24
1st June 1995
Page 24
Page 24, 1st June 1995 — Bomb fears for Chunnel
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

You can't carry petrol in bulk through the Channel Tunnel, but you can carry ammonium nitrate. Which is the more dangerous? David Harris tries to find out.

• Want to blow up the Channel Tunnel? Try ammonium nitrate (AN), the terrorists' friend. It's got a proven track record. The IRA use it for the big bangs like the Baltic Exchange and Staples Corner bombs. More recently it was devastating in the Oklahoma City bomb.

Just bulk load it into a truck, put a couple of pounds of Semtex in the middle for good measure and bingo, you've got yourself a really big bomb.

Dangerous stuff. So it must be difficult to get hold of, right? No, it's readily available and cheap. Well, it must be banned from the Chunnel then. Wrong again; since the end of March it's been allowed as a low-level hazardous substance.

What's going on? Quite simply, AN, properly used, is a common fertiliser, so is not classified as an explosive. Talk to the Health and Safety Executive and they'll tell you that in the form in which it can be carried through the chunnel AN is safe enough. It is, they say, an "oxidising substance", not an explosive. Reassured?

Not if you're independent explosives expert Dr Sidney Alford you're not.

Alford, a chemist whose pro

fessional credits include carrying out experiments in the Kuwait minefields after the Gulf war, and who specialises in explosive ordnance disposal, is scathing about the current rules governing AN. The form in which it is sold in Britain is perfectly suitable for bomb making and, thanks to its availability, is the material of choice, he says.

"Terrorists and I are apparently more interested in how AN actually behaves rather than how EC documents say it should," says Alford. He's already blown up a couple of cars with small amounts of AN to show how easily it can make bombs, but thus far his efforts have fallen on unresponsive ears at the HSE. When told of his experiments an irritated HSE official even threatened him with prosecution (the case never materialised).

But Alford's credibility is also based on the fact that he first approached MN and Ministers to warn them of the danger of AN in 1991, well before the Baltic Exchange and Staples Corner bombings.

Ireland had already learned the lesson—the fertiliser has been banned in the Republic since 1973 in order to cut off supplies to the IRA. "It's ludicrous," says Alford. "The IRA still holds enough Semtex to see it well into the next century...all it needs for really big bombs is AN. I would rather much rather see petrol tankers going through the Channel Tunnel than AN. It should be reclassified as an explosive."

Is anybody else worried? Well, the House of Lords is certainly taking an interest in the issue. This week a question is due to be tabled on the carriage of AN through the Channel Tunnel after several Lords asked researchers to look at the issue.

Others appear to be less concerned, however. John Hix, hazardous cargoes manager with the Freight Transport Association talks of "no risk of explosion": chunnel authorities say they are confident there is no risk.

John Chapman, Eurotunnel's freight sales manager in the UK, stresses that the chunnel follows the ADR regulations (the international standard for hazardous goods) to the

letter, alongside special considerations for the chunnel which were formulated by a special working group after several years' study.

He points out that the security cordon includes an X-ray machine that scans cargoes for explosive. Chapman says this should pick up any Semtex that might be hidden inside a load of AN. But not every load going through the tunnel is X-rayed: the checks are selective.

All of which leaves concerned onlookers not much nearer a satisfactory answer. The nub of the dispute, which looks set to sharpen in coming weeks with the Lords questions, is not whether AN is permitted to go through the tunnel (it certainly is), but whether it is really an explosive masquerading as an "oxidising substance".

If it is, the question that now needs to be answered is why the authorities are so unwilling to consider a reclassification. International hauliers have good reason to hope that Oklahoma City was not a precursor to an even bigger tragedy because at peak times the Channel Tunnel contains 10,000 people.

An AN truck bomb under the Channel could make the Oklahoma Baltic Exchange and Staples Corner bombings pale into insignificance.


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