Huge fire breaks out in Manchester with people evacuated and train lines blocked
A major fire has broken out in a derelict building in Manchester city centre, with residents in nearby apartment buildings forced to evacuate.
The building, which is the now-derelict Hotspur Press building beside Oxford Road station, erupted into flames this afternoon.
As a result all lines are blocked at the station, with Network Rail saying train services will be cancelled or delayed for most of the evening.
Greater Manchester Police and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service are at the scene.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) told Metro: 'Firefighters are currently tackling a large fire at the derelict Hotspur Press building on Cambridge Street in Manchester.
'An evacuation of the neighbouring apartment buildings is taking place. The public are advised to stay away from the area while crews continue to tackle the fire.'
Greater Manchester Police confirmed to Metro that it is in attendance alongside the fire service.
National Rail said in a statement: 'There is a fire next to the track at Manchester Oxford Road, closing all lines at this station.
'As a result, trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 45 minutes or revised.
'Major disruption is expected to continue to impact services until 21:00.' More Trending
All floors of the derelict site appear to be on fire currently, with cordons in place on surrounding streets.
Images from across the Manchester skyline show plumes of smoke in the sky, with videos showing firefighters still tackling the ongoing fire.
Local councillor and city centre spokesperson Pat Karney said that council officers are 'awaiting advice from the fire service about any evacuation of residents'.
'I can see the huge dark clouds from my flat,' he added.
Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.
MORE: Massive wildfire on Greek island of Chios sparks evacuations — 'situation remains critical'
MORE: Man in court charged with murder of partner found stabbed after house explosion
MORE: Woman dies after fire breaks out in hostel in north London
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
9 hours ago
- Metro
I never thought I had a sweet tooth — until I became a firefighter
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Welcome back to What's Cooking, Metro's food series where we find out exactly what's going on behind the scenes in the nation's kitchens. This week, we're shaking things up, as we're not in someone's home, we're at Dockhead Fire Station in Bermondsey to meet Ben Wiles. Ben, 37, is a former chef, who switched gears after the pandemic and now works as a firefighter in London, putting out blazes, rescuing cats from trees and cooking two meals a day for his colleagues. The dad-of-one has been working at the station for a year and says food has been his 'medicine' for some of the more traumatic aspects of the job. 'I've seen some eye-opening things,' he says. If you've ever wondered what sneaky snacks firefighters keep stashed away in fire engines or what a typical day on the job looks like, you're going to want to keep on reading, as we've got the answers. We turn up each morning and do a roll call, which is essentially reporting for duty. We'll work out what we're doing for the day, test the equipment, test the truck and our breathing apparatus, carry out any maintenance and then get out in the yard to do some drills. This will take us to breakfast, so I'll pop upstairs and prep something for us all to eat, assuming we don't have an incident to go to. We'll spend half an hour chatting, laughing, eating and having a cup of tea, which is a real highlight of the day, then off we go. We could be training, going to the gym, getting out into the community, doing fire safety checks with businesses or responding to incidents. On a quiet day there might be two or three incidents, but sometimes there's as many as 15. There are definitely some biscuits snuck away inside of the truck. It's impossible to avoid cakes and biscuits at the station, they're everywhere. People are always baking things and bringing them in. Even the healthiest people here, you'll catch them eating cake. I didn't think I had a sweet tooth before starting this job,but it turns out I do. I just have the self-control not to buy all of the things. The only time I ever get put off food is if we've been under severe heat stress, which is the equivalent to getting sunburn and not wanting food for a while. But in terms of what I see on the job, I think food is my medicine for that. When we're putting out a fire we can get seriously dehydrated – the gear keeps the heat out, but it also keeps the heat in, so you get warmer and warmer. When I go home, I'll be craving something salty, so I'm all over a cacio e pepe. I always have the ingredients part-cooked and ready to go. Ever since university I've loved frozen IKEA meatballs with Bisto gravy. That's my guilty pleasure, and I've extended it now to my little boy. Don't knock it. Anchovies. Those are always in my cupboard so I can make a quick pasta sauce. I just mix them with capers, maybe a little bit of stock and some Parmesan butter. I also always have gherkins in the cupboard to have with a sandwich. I love a cheese toastie with mustard, pickles and some onion. They're also really good with any kind of meat, or just eaten straight out of the jar as is. Some people might keep them in the fridge, and if I were in a restaurant it'd be the fridge, but I don't have space for that. Parmesan has to be in the fridge. Can't get my late-night cacio e pepe without it, can I? The IKEA meatballs, of course, but also ice lollies. I have an ice lolly every day and my boy loves them too. We always have Del Monte Orange Juice ones in the freezer, and some raspberry ones from Aldi which are unbelievable. The station freezer is also full of lollies and ice creams – they're a great way to cool off in our line of work. Salt. You've got to have good salt. It's not very expensive, but I always buy either Maldon or Cornish Sea Salt. You can really taste the difference, it's significant. There are a lot of things that I don't splurge on that I probably should, but the one that'll hurt a lot of people's feelings is olive oil. I buy cold pressed rapeseed oil at a third of the price, mainly because supermarket olive oil is incredibly expensive and never that delicious. I'd rather wait for friends and family to go on holiday in Europe and come home with a pretty bottle of good stuff. Clean your fridge. Taking a minute to keep your fridge clean will help food last so much longer. The way you store things, and the habitat you store them in matters. Any moisture when you have a leaking fridge, or anything like that, will cause your food to spoil very quickly. It's maybe a bit boring, but when I discovered how much longer food could actually last, it blew my mind. You can cook so much more and it'll save you money too. I'm usually cooking for between eight and 11 people and I make breakfast and dinner. We all chip in about £45 each a month and I budget that, plan the meals and order all the food for delivery. We work a shift pattern of two days and two nights, so I try to do something seasonal and healthy one day, and then let everyone indulge themselves on the other. For breakfast I'll make something like porridge, or maybe a full English. More Trending Recently we've had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, which is a favourite. Everyone also loves Sloppy Joes and Taco Tuesday. For that I'll make pork carnitas, various salsas… the full works. I still like to go back to my restaurant roots with a bit of flamboyance and get a bit creative – it makes me feel good. If we're on call outs, there isn't always time for cooking, so I basically try to make meals with slow-cooked meat or mince so I can minimise the spoilage if we have to drop everything and go. We don't want anything going to waste. View More » Want to take part in What's Cooking and let Metro raid your kitchen at home? Email Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: Huge fire rips through warehouse with smoke seen for miles across south London MORE: Smoke seen across London skyline after fire breaks out in block of flats MORE: Supermarket own-brand ketchup voted just as good as Heinz — and it's 70% cheaper Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.
ITV News
a day ago
- ITV News
Sections of Manchester's Hotspur Press building due to be demolished this weekend
Sections of Manchester's iconic Hotspur Press building are due to be demolished this weekend. The historic mill, believed to be among the oldest in Manchester city centre, was severely damaged when a huge blaze tore through the building on 23rd than 100 people were evacuated from buildings nearby, with smoke being visible for miles. Following the fire, an order for emergency demolition work was put in place. The Demolition is set to start on Saturday night into Sunday morning, to minimise disruption to the train line running past it. Machines were in place as workers prepared to get started on Friday. A spokesperson for MCR Property Group, which own the building, was present at the site. They said parts of the building have been safely removed as part of planned work. 'We've been instructed to carry out controlled work to make the site safe, that's our priority right now. Local shops have been informed, and police are on standby to make sure the area stays secure.' Meanwhile, the fire has reignited debate over why the building was never listed. Three heritage groups, including SAVE Britain's Heritage, have now submitted a Freedom of Information request, demanding answers after the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, rejected Historic England's recommendation to protect the site.
Metro
a day ago
- Metro
Air India pilots' final conversation before crash that killed 241 revealed
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video An Air India pilot denied switching the engines to cut off just seconds before the 787 crashed after takeoff, an investigation has found. A preliminary report on the crash said that both engines lost fuel supply moments after the aircraft lifted off the ground. It also revealed that Air India engineers had attended to a fault on the plane just an hour before the flight's scheduled departure from Ahmedabad airport in Gujarat. All but one of the 230 passengers on board the flight bound for London Gatwick were killed in the disaster, which also claimed the lives of 19 people on the ground and injured a further 67. The pilots of the previous flight had flagged an error with the plane's stabiliser sensor, which indicates the horizontal trim setting. The report confirmed that Air India Flight 171 had reached a maximum airspeed of 180 knots when the fuel supply to both engines was cut off within a second of each other. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Cutoff switches are usually only deployed to power down engines after landing or in the event of an emergency in the air, such as an engine fire. CCTV footage from the airport showed the aircraft's backup Ram Air Turbines (RAT) were activated after the engines cut out. Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder found that one of the pilots asked his colleague why he had cutoff the engines, to which they responded they hadn't. Within a minute of the engines switching to cutoff, the crew responded and put them back into 'run' mode in an attempt to restart them. However less than ten seconds later one of the pilots made a 'mayday' call to ATC. A question by the ATC operator about the aircraft's call sign went unanswered and the plane crashed just outside the airport's boundary at a residential hostel. The aircraft was airborne for a total of 40 seconds before it smashed into the ground. Investigators from India's Air Accident Investigation Bureau have focussed on the 787's fuel control locking feature, which is supposed to prevent accidental deployment during flight. The system, designed originally in the 1950s, requires pilots to pull up the switch before being able to flip it. A notice was issued by the US's FAA in 2018 following reports that the feature was installed disengaged on some 737 aircraft. However Air India did not undertake the recommended inspections as they were not mandatory, the Flight 171 report stated. There had been no reports of defects on the fuel control switch in the accident aircraft since 2023. However an unnamed air accident investigator based in Canada suggested the simultaneous deployment of the switches made this crash particularly unusual. They told the BBC: 'It would be almost impossible to pull both switches with a single movement of one hand, and this makes accidental deployment unlikely.' Aviation expert Keith Tonkin said it was 'inexplicable' that a pilot would flip the switch just after take off. He told ABC News Australia: 'It's important to have fuel flowing to the engines, unless you turn them off in the event of an emergency where the procedure requires that. It would not normally be done and it's a deliberate decision to do that.' More Trending It was the first major incident on a Boeing 787, which entered service in 2014. The aircraft operating Flight 171, VT-ANB, was manufactured in 2013. Both of its engines had been replaced this year – the left hand side in May, just weeks before the crash. The investigation has so far ruled out several possible factors, including weather conditions, which were found to be normal during the time of the flight. The 787 was found to be within acceptable weight limits and not carrying any dangerous goods, and both the pilot and first officer were both adequately rested and declared to fit to fly following a breath analyser test an hour before departure. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Air India plane crash investigation focuses on 'mistake' made by pilots MORE: Japan Airlines Boeing 737 flight plummets 26,000 ft before emergency landing MORE: Air India families 'need answers' with sabotage 'not ruled out'
