Two in hospital after explosion in flat
Cause of explosion is being probed, say police
INCIDENT: An investigation was under way last night into the cause of a blast which tore through a home in West Yorkshire.
Two men were taken to Leeds General Infirmary after the explosion in a flat at Silk Mill Drive in the Tinshill area of Leeds shortly before 3pm yesterday which destroyed the upper storey.
AN INVESTIGATION was under way last night into the cause of a blast which tore through a home in West Yorkshire.
Two men were taken to Leeds General Infirmary after the explosion in a flat at Silk Mill Drive in the Tinshill area of Leeds shortly before 3pm yesterday.
Neighbours came to the aid of one of the injured before emergency services arrived. One of the first on the scene was resident Stephen Marham.
He said: “It was horrendous when you comprehend something like that and the devastation.”
Police were called at 2.51pm to reports of a blast on the street.
It is not being treated as terrorism-related.
The force of the explosion destroyed the upper storey of the building, sending rubble flying up to 100 yards.
Mr Marham, who lives three doors away, said: “I was upstairs talking to my wife. I just heard a massive bang and the house shook.
“My initial reaction was to run downstairs but as I got to the bottom I could see the flats.
“My partner just screamed ‘the flat’s gone’.”
Mr Marham said he ran out of the house and saw a man struggling towards him.
“I could see he had been caught up in it,” he said. “It was the man who lived in the flat.
“He was in a bit of a mess so I laid him on the floor in the recovery position.
“I took my jacket off and got a blanket. Another neighbour got one. He’s been very, very lucky.”
Mr Marham said he had gone into ‘auto-pilot’ and not thought about the consequences.
But he added: “I knew not to do anything heroic.
“I could smell gas after it had blown.”
Carole Bennett, 47, who lives on the opposite side of the street, said she was in shock after hearing the blast and going outside.
“I could not believe what had happened,” she said. “There was rubble everywhere. It was all over the road and a piece in my garden, which is 100 yards away.”
Gas engineer Allen Hart, 43, had been working further up the street fitting a boiler. He said the explosion caused the property he was in to shake, and the noise prompted him to go and see what had happened.
Describing the scene that greeted him, he said: “It was so shocking, it was horrendous to see – the tiles from the roof had blown up in the air and had come down and stuck into the grass.
“The roof was in the road; when the fire brigade came they had to drive over it. It was like a war zone.”
He saw water “squirting out”, and he could smell gas – prompting him to call the gas emergency services straight away.
A gas engineer for 28 years, Mr Hart said he was “totally shocked”, adding: “I have never seen or experienced anything like that before.”
Work was continuing last night at the scene, where one neighbouring home was evacuated due to structural damage.
A Yorkshire Ambulance Service spokeswoman said three ambulances and the Hazardous Area Response Team attended.