THE county's chief fire officer has reassured families that the search will go on at Didcot Power station to recover loved ones as soon as possible.

It comes after the body of the first trapped demolition worker was recovered from Didcot Power Station and left the site in a Guard of Honour procession at 2.30am this morning.

Firemen, police officers and ambulance workers who had been on site for hours stood in line to pay their last respects as the body was carried out in a Cooperative Funeralcare private ambulance.

Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service chief fire officer Dave Etheridge said: "From the moment this incident occurred, the thoughts of all the emergency services have always been with the families involved. 

"We acknowledge the emotional journey they have been on over the last few months and we will continue to ensure that all the joint efforts of the personnel on site are focused on returning the remaining loved ones as quickly as possible."

Families of the trapped men had also travelled down to the site to pay their respects and waited through the night to watch the ceremony from a distance.

Demolition workers and members of the armed forces were also in attendance.

Thames Valley Police announced yesterday afternoon the body of one of the three men buried in the disaster at Didcot A in February had been located but will not say which of the men it is before the body is formally identified.

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The force originally said the Guard of Honour ceremony would take place at 10pm last night but the ceremony finally happened at 2.30am, six months and eight days after the disaster.

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Demolition workers Chris Huxtable, 34, from Swansea, and Ken Cresswell, 57, and John Shaw, 61, from Rotherham were buried under 30ft of twisted steel when the 10-storey boiler house collapsed on February 23.

The families of all three men were informed when a body was found yesterday afternoon and invited to come to Didcot.

The disaster also killed worker Mick Collings, 53, from Cleveland, whose body was recovered shortly after the accident.

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Sarah Champion, MP for Rotherham, said the last six months had been a "living hell" for the families of the three remaining men.

She added: "It is such a relief that one of the missing men has finally been found but we must remember that two more are still missing.

"These last six months have been torture for the relatives. My thoughts and prayers go to the Shaw, Cresswell & Huxtable families.

"We will get your men home and give them the dignified funerals they deserve."

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Half of the boiler house collapsed while it was being prepared for demolition by Coleman & Company.

Since then emergency services have been trying to recover the three while police and the Health and Safety Executive investigate the cause.

Three weeks after the accident, RWE had still not begun a search operation for the trapped workers, and on Sunday, March 13, families of the men held a protest at the site calling for all the companies involved to hurry up and find their relatives.

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The mission to recover the men officially began on Saturday, March 19.

In May, the company originally in charge of the demolition of the power station, Coleman and Company, temporarily handed over control to a new firm - Brown and Mason - until the recovery operation is complete.

Later that month the recovery mission was paused when rescue workers reached a 50-metre safety exclusion zone around the dangerous remaining half of the boiler house.

That was brought down in a controlled explosion in July, and the recovery efforts resumed a day later.

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Brown and Mason have tonight halted the removal of debris so that specialists from Thames Valley Police, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue and the South Central Ambulance Service Hazardous Area Recovery Team can enter the site.

Now the first body has been recovered, a "disaster victim identification process" will commence.

Police spokeswoman Connie Primmer said: "Our thoughts remain with the families of the missing men and we would ask that their privacy is respected during this incredibly difficult time."