Europe’s Largest Explosion

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On December 11th 2005, one of the largest peacetime explosions in Europe tore through the town of Hemel Hempstead in the United Kingdom. Twenty years on, the disaster has largely faded from memory, but the risk it exposed hasn’t. Through on-the-ground reporting and interviews with people who were directly involved, I’ve piecing together what happened, so you can see how this unfolded, and whether it could really happen again.

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Faultline is produced by Andy Burgess https://instagram.com/andyburgess
Additional Reporting: Eric Johnson
Artwork: Adam Stuart
Special thanks to Rob Argent, Roy Wilshire, Sue Ferguson & the people of Hemel Hempstead.

Eric’s BBC Sounds Podcast & Article: https://bbc.in/4qltI1H https://bbc.in/4bDeZLY

Hi, I’m Andy and I believe people would be less divided if they understood each other more. So in 2022 I started Faultline to document and report on stories from overlooked people and places to shift how we see the world.

My filmmaking journey started on Snapchat in 2016 where I encountered stories in parts of the world that are largely ignored by mainstream media. These stories were way bigger than my own, so I turned the camera onto others and became the guide. In 2018, that work earned me a Shorty Award nomination, a signal that audiences were ready for stories that had long been overlooked.

That path led me to create and showrun ‘Origins’ for Red Bull, a documentary series that traced the roots of extreme sports through the overlooked communities and places that built them, and how they reshaped global culture.

Over the years my reporting has taken me to places experiencing profound change, from the Arctic to the Middle East, across Eastern Europe, South Asia and the United States, to forgotten communities back home in the UK. Everywhere I go, the same pattern emerges despite language barriers and cultural differences, everyone has stories they want to tell. It’s obvious when we have real conversations we find common ground and learn something new. But inside our algorithmic bubbles, that curiosity has been replaced with fear.

Faultline is my answer to that: a space for stories from places you might never think to look. Wherever possible, I travel to where those stories live, listen closely, and share what I find. Because choosing curiosity over fear changes how we see the world. That’s the journey here, and I’d love for you to be part of it.

Disclosure these are affiliate links.

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🎶 Includes music by Tom Fox: https://tomfox.site https://instagram.com/tom._fox/

Additional music from Epidemic Sounds: https://share.epidemicsound.com/T2andyfautline24 and Musicbed https://fm.pxf.io/c/2423499/1347628/16252

Sources 🔗 https://bit.ly/4rzPmAd

Time Stamps:
0:00 Europe’s Largest Explosion
1:05 Prelude
2:33 Chapter I – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
6:17 Chapter II – The Incident
14:07 Chapter III – The Fight Back
16:27 Chapter IV – The Investigation
19:38 Chapter V – Running out of Space

#documentary #unitedkingdom #disaster