Chemical leak at M6 services

A Staffordshire motorway service station and hotel were evacuated in a chemical scare.

A tanker parked at the Moto southbound services at Hilton Park on the M6 near Essington began leaking a corrosive liquid at 5.30pm yesterday.

The driver raised the alarm and fire crews were called out. The service station and Travelodge were evacuated.

Police and the Highways Agency sealed off the services although the northbound services remained open.

The closure did not affect traffic on the motorway and no-one was injured in the incident.

About 200 litres of the 17,000 litres of the chemical, which was later established to be ferric chloride, leaked in a car park.

Firefighters tried to prevent the chemical getting into drains and called an incident response unit and the Environment Agency to identify it. The remaining chemical was decanted into a second tanker. Fire crews remained at the scene until midnight.

Specialist ambulance service staff, including a hazardous area response team, were also called to the incident and remained on stand-by.

The driver of the vehicle was checked over by paramedics but was unaffected. The Moto services was fully back to normal today. Two Cannock fire crews and one each from Brewood and Burton upon Trent attended.

A control unit was also sent to the scene.

Firefighters dealing with the chemical put down an absorbant material to soak up the chemical that had leaked on to the car park.

* Ferric chloride gives off heat when dissolved in water. The resulting brown, acidic, and corrosive solution is used as a coagulant in sewage treatment and drinking water production, and for etching copper-based metals in printed circuit boards. It can cause burns and breathing difficulties.