About Fireworks-laden ship docks

UK FIRE fighters are calling for urgent action over the storage and transport of fireworks ahead of the November 5 Guy Fawkes Day as a ship laden with them docked at Felixstowe.

"There is a containership packed with fireworks in ISO containers. Hundreds of containers holding fireworks - potential bombs - are moved across the UK," said Fire Brigades Union (FBU) chief Matt Wrack said.

Mr Wrack warned that fireworks would be moved across the UK in the same ISO storage containers that were at the centre of the Marlie Farm explosion that killed two firemen last December.

Emergency services and the public are being put in needless danger, he said, because of confused regulation, lack of monitoring and poor labelling of imported fireworks. He accused the government and the health and safety authorities of being slow in reacting to dangers uncovered during the Marlie Farm investigations.

The FBU said that in four major fireworks incidents in the UK, labelling had been unreliable, a situation worsened by the fact that there were too many agencies involved and too little co-operation between them.

The union also said ISO containers are inappropriate for the storage or transport of fireworks and that poor information and guidance for emergency services hampered their ability to provide a successful response to accidents.

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