Friday, June 23, 2006

The Principality of Sealand is currently being checked, after a fire caused havoc to the ex-World War II tower. Fire fighters from the Thames Coastguard poured water onto the structure, and rescued a security guard who was taken to Ipswich hospital by an RAF helicopter, suffering from smoke inhalation. It is believed that the fire was started by a fault in a generator. The Harwich off-shore lifeboat team attended the platform, and described the top platform as having caught alight due to an ‘electrical fire’.

Sealand, formerly HM Fort Roughs, is a self declared principality comprising of an old army fort. It was built to deter, and report back on, any German attempts to lay mines using aircraft in the channel of the Thames. The offshore company HavenCo used it to hold servers for the computer industry.