British military deployed to solve fuel crisis
Gulf Times
Members of the military walk at Buncefield Oil Depot in Hemel Hempstead, Britain.
British military personnel in combat fatigues arrived on Monday at a BP (BP.L) storage depot after the government ordered the army to help deliver fuel to help compensate for an acute shortage of truckers, a Reuters reporter said.
Britain's supply chains for everything from petrol and poultry to medicines and milk have been strained to breaking point by shortages of labour in the wake of the Brexit and Covid crises.
Panic buying of fuel amid the shortage of truckers triggered chaotic scenes across major cities last week with queues of drivers stacked up. Some have had fist fights over the pumps while others hoarded fuel in old water bottles.
"As an extra precaution, we've put the extra drivers on," Prime Minister Boris Johnson's finance minister, Rishi Sunak, told LBC radio.
