A lightning strike which scored a direct hit on a gas tank triggered a huge explosion of “pulsating orange” to fill the sky near the British city of Oxford.
UK police are attending gas facility fire that was likely to have been caused by a lightning strike.
British police on Monday said they were attending the scene of a fire in Oxfordshire, that was believed to have been caused by a lightning strike on gas containers owned by Severn Trent Green Power.
A spokesperson for Severn Trent Green Power said that a digester tank at its Cassington facility near Yarnton, Oxfordshire, was struck by lightning, causing an explosion in its biogas tanks.
No one is believed to have been hurt police said.
Posts appearing on social media showed a large and ominous-looking fireball rising from the horizon, and confusion from people who were trying to work out what had happened.
Mystery shrouded the explosion until energy firm Severn Trent Green Power moved to confirm that a lightning bolt had struck a gas tank during a storm.
Emergency services attended the scene, but early reports suggest no one was injured.
Severn Trent Green Power confirmed that at about 7.20 pm biogas from a container had ignited at its Cassington AD Facility, near Oxford airport.
Jack Frowde, who works at Oxford University, told the BBC that he heard a deafening sound and saw a “pulsating orange” light in the distance.
He said he was sitting in his kitchen when the whole room lit up with a brilliant white light, then followed by a huge crack which sounded like really heavy thunder.
He said he looked out of the kitchen window and it was as if the sky was pulsating orange.
He said he ran to the back to capture the orange glow as it faded after about 20 seconds.
Oxfordshire was amongst dozens of locations in the United Kingdom, put under a yellow weather warning for thunderstorms by the Met Office.
