SIX people have been injured, two of them critically, following an explosion that left a building in the English city of Leicester in flames.

A shop and house on Hinckley Road collapsed and fire services struggled to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby buildings.

Leicestershire Police initially asked the public to stay away from the road where the explosion happened while first responders tended to what was described as a “major incident.”

The department said on its website about three hours later there was no indication the emergency was terror-related.

Local media reports witnesses as hearing a heavy explosion and photos and video posted on Twitter and Facebook show an intense fire in a building in the residential street.

“It’s blown the shop across both sides of lanes and there is carnage everywhere. It rattled doors and windows here,” one witness told The Mirror.
A Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman said: “This is a search and rescue at the moment. It is unknown if people are injured or trapped.”

The affected property was a two floor building with a loft conversion that had suffered a “pancake collapse”, she added.

The Western Park Convenience Store, at the seat of the blast, is believed to have been open at the time of the explosion.

Sixty surrounding homes were evacuted.

Jonny Halliwell told The Mirror he joined people running down the street immeidately after the blast to see if they could help. “People grabbed blankets and ran towards the fire to try to help people. There was rubble and shop fittings everywhere. I saw people pulling up chunks of rubble and searching for people underneath....

“The shop was open until 10pm so there would have been people in there at the time”

Another witness tweeted: “The Polish shop next to the bus stop has blown up. Avoid the area. Roads closed and lots of sirens in attendance. Smoke everywhere.”

Nearby resident Christine Stephens said on Facebook: “Omg our front and back doors shuddered and couldn’t understand why, tjs on Hinckley road has exploded huge fire st the moment.”

Police say they are uncertain if anyone was in the Western Park Store or the apartment above it at the time of the blast.

Julie Dexter, 56, told The Sun online: “It felt like the house was falling down. I was scared to death. The sound – I thought it was a bomb! There’s just glass everywhere, the road is full of debris, there’s plumes of smoke. I had just gone to wash my hair – I ‘d just dried it and then everything just shook. The doors, windows – the whole house just shook.”

“The cause of the explosion will be the subject of a joint investigation by the police and Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service,” police said.

Leicester is 177 kilometres north of London.