A MAJOR gas leak was averted in Hartlebury when quick-thinking workers managed to relocate 22 tons of gas seeping from a broken container into a tanker.

Last night's drama began at around 7.30pm when a driver for Callow Gas, on the Rushock Trading Estate, smelled gas and contacted his boss who dialled 999.

Crews from Droitwich, Kidderminster and Bromsgrove Fire Stations and the Incident Support Unit, also from Droitwich, raced to the scene to find the noxious substance leaking from a 26-ton underground container.

Firefighters were still there monitoring the situation at 5am today.

"The leak was coming from an underground bulk storage tank," said leading firefighter David Pearsall, of Kidderminster Fire Station.

"A seal on one of the flanges had split."

He said workers, who had to be called out to the plant, spent several hours transferring gas from the leaking container into a tanker.

"Their tanker wasn't big enough to hold all 22 tons of gas at once, so the drivers had to make about four trips to decant the gas into another bulk storage tank elsewhere," Mr Pearsall said.

"You could smell gas on the air, but it was quite windy, which helped to disperse it.

"There was no problem with a gas cloud and no one had to be evacuated.

"There was a large area cordoned off, though."