Sign up to the Hull Live newsletter for daily updates and breaking news Sign up here! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Forty-five years ago today, on June 1, 1974, the Nypro chemical plant at Flixborough, south of the Humber and north of Scunthorpe, exploded. It killed 28 workers, wrecking property over a wide area and sending debris across the Humber to rain down on Hull and its surrounding area.

Writing to commemorate its 40th anniversary five years ago, Stuart Russell, working for the Hull Daily Mail at the time of the disaster, looked back on his memories of one of Britain's biggest peacetime explosions.

I stood in a village street on a warm, sunny June evening and surveyed a scene of devastation.

Only two hours earlier, children played here, families gathered for tea and, for some, it was time to relax in well-tended gardens. Now, only their wrecked houses remained, stark and empty against a back-drop of smoke and fire.

This was Amcotts, on Saturday, June 1, 1974, small, historic and now devastated when, in a split second, the massive explosion wrecked the £200m Nypro chemical plant just across the River Trent, taking with it the lives of 28 men and bringing terror to those living nearby as it ripped their homes apart.

(Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

I looked in stunned disbelief at the destruction, at houses with their roofs torn off, at the mounds of bricks and remains of furniture. In the Ingleby Arms, I met a woman sobbing uncontrollably, her life changed forever.

I can never forget the trail of blood winding its way down the path to the kerb and the glass- strewn street from the back door of a neat and cared for property now roofless and windowless.

It was a community emptied of those who lived there fleeing, many of them injured, whose lives were torn apart at seven minutes before 5pm on a summer Saturday.

As night fell, Amcotts was a ghost village, a real-life disaster movie set. And across the river, the poisonous smoke rose higher and fires still raged.

Sunday, 5am, and in another village, the scene was similarly chaotic. This was Flixborough, where, just 12 hours before, life was relaxed and secure.

That fine morning saw newcomers in the streets – firemen and patrolling police who had been touring the village through the night.

House after house was devastated, roofs torn away, bricks and tiles flung onto gardens where toys lay scattered and forgotten.

Half-eaten meals covered in shattered glass lay on tables, deck chairs were scattered on patios, children’s bicycles lay abandoned by the roadside.

Above it all, the mile-high plume of smoke still rose as fires blazed amid the twisted wreckage of what had been the Nypro plant.

Slowly, people returned to what remained of their homes after a night spent with relatives or in emergency shelters.

Among them a pig farmer, who found his buildings damaged and many of his 2,400 animals dead. In his kitchen, the clock gave a grim reminder of the moment disaster struck, its hands stopped at 4.53pm.

Another man, his hands bandaged, attempted to board his shattered windows, his home just a quarter of a mile from the chemical plant site.

A woman whose home was in the 12 houses of Stather Road wept as she told me: “We just don’t know where to go.”

Blood-stained clothes lay discarded in gardens, cars parked on drives were write-offs, fittings inside houses were torn from walls.

The following day, the first workmen were expected to move in to try to salvage what they could and begin repairs, but on that sunny Sunday, Flixborough was a dead village.

Follow Hull Live

Our daily newsletter - To get the latest headlines direct to your email inbox every day, click here .

Download our app - You can download our free app for iPhone and iPad from Apple's App Store , or get the Android version from Google Play .

Follow Hull Live on Facebook - Like our Facebook page to get the latest news in your feed and join in the lively discussions in the comments. Click here to give it a like!

Follow us on Twitter - For breaking news and the latest stories, click here to follow Hull Live on Twitter.

Follow us on Instagram - On the Hull Live Instagram page we share gorgeous pictures of our stunning city - and if you tag us in your posts, we could repost your picture on our page! We also put the latest news in our Instagram Stories. Click here to follow Hull Live on Instagram .