Search efforts for three men killed
in the Didcot power station collapse are set to resume after the
remainder of the building was demolished earlier.
A remote
demolition brought down the decommissioned site at about 06:00 BST in a
unique operation using remote-controlled robots.
Ken Cresswell, 57, and John Shaw, 61, and Chris Huxtable, 34,
were trapped under rubble on 23 February. The body of Michael Collings, 53, of Teesside, was recovered.
The building - which was due for demolition when it partially collapsed - had been too unstable to be approached afterwards. BBC
News correspondent Amanda Dellor, who is at the scene, said she has
been told the recovery could begin as early as this afternoon.
The
charges went off one minute after six and the building came down "very
quickly", covering the entire site in a dust cloud, she said.
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The search for Ken Cresswell and John Shaw, of Rotherham, and Chris Huxtable, of Swansea, can now resume
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Thames Valley Police said recovery work would restart once it was safe to access the site. The
search was halted in May when contractors reached a 50m (164ft)
exclusion zone, beyond which is was considered too dangerous to
continue.
The families of the three men yet to be recovered had opposed plans to use explosives for the demolition.
Ken Cresswell and John Shaw were both from Rotherham, while Chris Huxtable was from Swansea.
Steve Hall, son-in-law of Mr Cresswell, previously said: "We want the men back in one piece, not many pieces." Roland
Alford, the explosives contractor at the power station, said the
four-month delay in completing the demolition was necessary on safety
grounds.
He added: "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."
