{"id":263907,"date":"2025-03-21T16:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/decrepit-infrastructure-poor-security-heathrow-chaos-prompts-thorny-questions\/"},"modified":"2025-03-21T16:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:47:11","slug":"decrepit-infrastructure-poor-security-heathrow-chaos-prompts-thorny-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/decrepit-infrastructure-poor-security-heathrow-chaos-prompts-thorny-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Decrepit infrastructure? Poor security? Heathrow chaos prompts thorny questions."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/21\/multimedia\/21heathrow-government-response-bmjc\/21heathrow-government-response-bmjc-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Decrepit infrastructure? Poor security? Heathrow chaos prompts thorny questions.\" title=\"Decrepit infrastructure? Poor security? Heathrow chaos prompts thorny questions.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Whatever caused the fire near Heathrow Airport, the scale of the chaos raised uncomfortable questions for Britain\u2019s government about issues such as the security measures protecting key transport hubs and the resilience of the country\u2019s often aging infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With counterterrorism police leading the investigation, the possibility of sabotage was being taken seriously, at least as a precaution, though officials say there is currently no evidence that foul play was behind the blaze at the electricity substation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Metropolitan Police in London said that counterterrorism specialists had taken charge \u201cgiven the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that it was \u201cnot unusual\u201d for the specialized officers to be involved in an investigation of such a major incident, and he told Sky News that there was \u201cno reason at all for anyone to be concerned or alarmed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nonetheless, with the fire still burning and threatening to extend the disruption into Saturday, nothing has been ruled out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said that he was \u201creceiving regular updates\u201d about the situation at Heathrow and was \u201cin close contact with partners on the ground.\u201d He added that he knew the outage was \u201ccausing distress and disruption, especially for those traveling or without power in their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Heidi Alexander, the British transport secretary, said that she had spoken to managers at Heathrow and had been \u201creassured they are working tirelessly to reopen the airport as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But there seemed to be no certainty that the inconvenience for travelers would end quickly. Asked at a news briefing whether there was confidence that the airport would reopen at midnight, a Downing Street spokesman said that it would be up to the emergency services and Heathrow to decide, but he acknowledged that there would be significant disruption in the hours and days ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Another question was whether a meeting would be convened on Friday afternoon of a government emergency response committee, known as COBRA (an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A). If it is, that could be a signal that the closure of the airport was expected to last into Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">John McDonnell, a lawmaker who represents Hayes, the area where the fire broke out, said that any investigation would need to look at \u201cwhy backup arrangements have not worked\u201d and how the infrastructure could be so vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere are lessons that have got to be learned here,\u201d he told reporters on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/21\/world\/europe\/infrastructure-security-heathrow-chaos.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever caused the fire near Heathrow Airport, the scale of the chaos raised uncomfortable questions for Britain\u2019s government about issues such as the security measures protecting key transport hubs and the resilience of the country\u2019s often aging infrastructure. With counterterrorism police leading the investigation, the possibility of sabotage was being taken seriously, at least as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/21\/multimedia\/21heathrow-government-response-bmjc\/21heathrow-government-response-bmjc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8321,5435,135231,1200,24894,202853,6597,170267,171902,137131,5555,191488,6694,5896,2441,195283],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263909,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263907\/revisions\/263909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}