AstraZeneca Vaccine Facility Under Threat of Flooding in Northern Wales, Reports Say

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A major manufacturing and storage facility for the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine is under severe threat of flooding in northern Wales as Storm Christoph dumps heavy precipitation on the United Kingdom.

Mark Pritchard, Leader of Wrexham Council, told Sky News on Thursday that the local industrial complex required overnight efforts to be secured from flooding.

"We've had the issues on Wrexham Industrial Estate… the Oxford vaccine is manufactured there and we had to work with the company logistically with the storage facility. That was under the possibility of flooding, so we worked through the night with that and that was a success", Pritchard said.

In this Aug. 14, 2020, file photo, laboratory technicians work at the mAbxience biopharmaceutical company on an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and the laboratory AstraZeneca in Garin, Argentina.

© AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko

The councillor said that emergency services turned to local residents for support and some supplied additional pumps and equipment to reduce water buildup.

"This could have had an impact not just in Wrexham, Wales but across the whole country where the vaccination supplies", Pritchard added.

Five severe flood warnings have been issued in northern England and Wales on the back of heavy rains and snow from Storm Christoph, with more than 180 flood alerts issued in residential areas in the Greater Manchester area and settlements on the banks of the Welsh River Dee.