A man and his niece had a narrow escape after a manhole cover exploded just seconds after they had walked over it.
An underground explosion caused by a cable fault blew open a manhole cover outside J Archer Carpets Ltd on Abbey Street, Accrington yesterday afternoon.
Dozens of properties were left without electricity and Abbey Street closed and evacuated from Blackburn Road to Eastgate following the incident.
Mark Everleigh was holding his four-year-old niece’s hand on Abbey Street in Accrington when the manhole cover exploded less than two metres from them.
The shocked 37-year-old said they heard a loud ‘boom’ sound and turned round to see the manhole cover shooting into the air.
Mark, who lives on nearby Warner Street, told the Observer that they were ‘very lucky’ to avoid any injuries.
He said: “As we walked past that bit it just went ‘boom’ behind us. I was holding my niece’s hand and my dog as well. We had literally just walked past it.
“We were still outside the furniture shop and only about a metre or two away. When it went off I swore and turned round to my niece to apologise.
“She wasn’t scared. She just thought it was hilarious. She said ‘the pavement went boom’.
“Thinking about it now it really shook my up. My niece and I could’ve been stood on that thing if we were a second or two slower.
“I’ve joked about it with my mum and my sister but in hindsight it could’ve been a lot worse.”
The explosion attracted the attention of nearby shopkeepers and pubgoers and the road was closed off for two hours by police for a fire investigation to take place.
Mark, who works at a call centre in Manchester city centre, said they were returning home from a walk in the park with his 10-month-old Staffordshire cross dog Remy when the incident happened on Monday, June 6.
He said: “Everybody ran out from the cafe and were wondering what was going on. I stayed for about five minutes but I had to get my niece home.
“It’s been a bit of a shock to everyone. It didn’t sink in until I dropped my niece off.
“It dawned on me that it could’ve been a lot more serious and dangerous to us that it was.
“I’m just happy that no-one was hurt and myself and my niece aren’t hurt.”
Electricity North West (ENW) said the explosion was caused by an underground cable fault and the electricity supply to 50 customers was shut off as a precaution.
ENW said their engineers worked through the night and restored power to all customers at 12.30am on Tuesday, June 7.
A spokesperson said: “Safety is our number one priority and we take our responsibilities very seriously. Incidents like this are very rare, although the issue of underground faults is one that affects power networks around the world. We do all we can to maintain our underground network, with the vast majority of faults found and repaired without any external impact.”
Garry Drinkwater, watch manager at Hyndburn Fire station, said there was nearly 60 times the normal amount of carbon dioxide in the manhole which triggered the explosion.
He said: “We were called out to the explosion on the pavement at around 2.38pm.
“There were police that were driving past at the time and as they came around the corner there was a large explosion and the manhole cover was lifted off the ground and shattered the bricks and tarmac around it.
“On our arrival we used a combustible gas indicator, I put that in the manhole and it showed over 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide, normal levels should be just seven parts per million, so this was a very high concentration of carbon dioxide.
“We evacuated both sides of the street and placed a 50 metre cordon around the scene.
“We allowed the gas to disperse naturally and the power has been knocked off for a large part of the town centre from Abbey Street down to the bus station.
“The cause of the carbon dioxide was the overheating of an electricity sub station.
“We closed the incident at 4.30pm and turned it over to Electricity North West.”
