THE only surviving witness of a massive explosion which ripped through a North-East power station spoke for the first time yesterday of the moment three workmates died.

Graeme White, of Billingham, still bandaged from his injuries suffered in August 2001, described how his whole body was in flames after the explosion.

A Teesside inquest heard that Mr White was one of four men involved in maintenance work on a transformer at the plant, formerly owned by American company Enron, at Wilton, near Redcar.

Mr White, 37, and his colleague Andy Sherwood, 36, of Hartlepool, were there to observe an unusual attempt to manually "tap" the electrical transformer to adjust the voltage in order to close a circuit breaker.

Mr Sherwood and Darren Higgins, 28, of Normanby, caught the full blast and died at the scene. The pair's injuries were so severe they could only be identified by their dental records.

Another man, Lawrence Paul Surtees, 40, died the following day after sustaining 90 per cent burns.

Mr White, who is still undergoing surgery for his burns, told the inquest he was there only to observe the procedure of manually "tapping" the auxiliary transformer.

The operations technician said: "I was minutes, no more than two minutes, behind the others.

"When I got there Paul and Darren were on the transformer platform and Andy was just by the ladder.

"Paul and Darren were actually pulling the lever when a buzzing started and there was a flash and bang. I saw a flame and I saw my whole body was in flames.

"I would say I was conscious through all of it. The first thing I could see I was underneath three or more cooler water reserves. I saw a big puddle of water and jumped in it. I got up and threw my jacket off and jumped into the safety shower.

"I didn't have knowledge of how the other three were until firemen asked me about them."

The inquest continues.