LONDON – Thousands of vacationers confronted disruption as all flights have been suspended on Wednesday at London’s Luton airport after a fire tore through a newly constructed parking garage, destroying cars and in part collapsing the construction.
Four firefighters and an airport worker have been handled in hospitals for smoke inhalation after the fire, which erupted on Tuesday night.
All flights have been suspended till at least 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the airport mentioned in a observation, and would-be passengers have been requested to stick away as a result of emergency crews have been nonetheless at the scene.
Luton, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) north of central London, is a hub for easyJet, Ryanair and different finances airways operating flights to locations within the United Kingdom and Europe.
Some passengers needed to wait at the within reach railway station for the reason that airport was once closed.
Nikodem Lesiak, a college pupil making an attempt to go back to Poland, mentioned he had spent the evening at the station.
“When we got here, we found out Luton is burning and everything is closed, and we were supposed to have our flight at 7:50 today but it was cancelled,” he said.
Video posted on social media and on the websites of British news outlets showed police and fire department vehicles gathered outside a multi-story parking structure where the top level was engulfed in flames. The parking garage for Terminal 2 partially collapsed.
In addition to the five people hospitalized, a sixth person was treated at the scene.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said its crews were “monitoring the smoldering remains” on Wednesday morning. Chief fire officer Andrew Hopkinson mentioned the blaze is assumed to have began with a diesel car, and the just lately opened parking garage didn’t have sprinklers.
Russell Taylor, 41, an account director from Kinross in Scotland, saw the flames after flying in to Luton from Edinburgh. He told the PA news agency that he first saw a couple of fire engines with a car on fire on an upper level.
“A couple of mins later, maximum of the higher flooring was once alight, automotive alarms have been going off with loud explosions from vehicles going up in flames,” he said. “The pace through which the fire took hang was once improbable.”