Fire at Olympics Site Sends Black Smoke Over London
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LONDON — A fire at an east London warehouse on the 2012 Olympics site sent a towering column of black smoke over the British capital today, authorities said. There were no reports of injuries.
The blaze broke out shortly after noon on the western boundary of the Olympic Park site in Stratford, the Olympic Delivery Authority said.
Police said there was nothing to suggest a suspicious cause. “We only know it’s a fire,” a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said. “There’s nothing to suggest anything else at the moment.”
The industrial area, about 51⁄2 miles east of central London, is under extensive reconstruction for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Olympics officials said the fire broke out near the site where the main press center will be located.
“We heard this small bang and came rushing out,” a print worker, Danny Cherry, 30, said. “What we could see was just so much smoke.”
“I think it’s actually an old clothes factory,” Mr. Cherry said. “”It’s an old building that they were going to knock down anyway.”
One railway line was closed because of smoke, Network Rail said. Transport for London, the agency that operates bus and subway services, said there were three bus garages in the area but none was involved in the fire.
