‘Huge explosion’ wakes residents across Southend

Residents across Southend had a shock last night by the sound of a “huge explosion” which some describe as sounding like a “bomb had gone off”.

The booming noise at about 00:45 was heard from the edge of Great Wakering, all the way across Southend, Leigh, Rochford and even Hadleigh.

The huge noise is thought to have been the combination of a “rare” lightning strike hitting a ground electricity cable and the thunder clap that followed.

Some residents in Shoeburyness said it was the biggest flash of lightning and loudest bang of thunder they had ever seen or heard in their life.

The thunder from this rarer type of lightning is known to be super loud. Positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are typically very bright in comparison to other lightning activity.

Thunder from such lightning strikes is very loud and “may sound like a deep, low-frequency sonic boom.”

Steven Quy said: “I’m in Hadleigh and I heard the same single thunder clap that the rest of Southend and Great Wakering heard, unbelievably loud!”

Around 2,000 properties experienced a power cut following the lightning strike, however power was soon redirected to most homes. A spokesperson for UK Power Networks said: “We believe the issue was with an underground cable. Specialist engineers in our control room worked remotely to divert and restore power. We also sent engineers to check our equipment.”