Hundreds of shoppers were evacuated from a Tesco store in Accrington on New Years Eve following an explosion which happened when a pipe feeding a refrigeration unit ruptured



Fire services were called to the Tesco Extra store on Eagle Street at just after 4pm following reports of a loud bang and smoke billowing from the refrigeration section.



The store was evacuated while nine fire-fighters helped clear the carbon dioxide gas cloud released from the ruptured pipe. There were no reports of any injuries.



The store remained closed throughout the day to allow engineers to fix the damaged pipe before the store re-opened again on New Years Day.



The incident was similar to another ruptured pipe at a Tesco store in Walkden, Salford last month.



A spokesperson for Tesco said: "We are continuing to investigate but we believe the incident at the Tesco store in Accrington is the same to the one that happened in Walkden and was caused by the same part.



"We are now replacing that part in all similar refrigeration systems throughout our UK stores. At the Accrington store we have reinforced the pipe by putting a steel surround around that particular part."