Underground explosion leads to evacuation at Brown’s of Chester

Dec 12 2008 by Laurie Stocks-Moore, Chester Chronicle

Underground explosion leads to evacuation at Brown’s of Chester

CHRISTMAS shoppers were evacuated from Chester city centre when an apparent underground explosion burst the pavement open on Eastgate Street.

At about 5.50pm on Monday (December 8), firefighters rushed to the scene outside Browns and evacuated the store along with shops 100 metres either side of the Debenhams branch.

The warehouse manager at the store had been walking along paving outside when they heard a blast and noticed scorch marks at the foot of the steps behind her.

Crew manager Dave Doneo led the fire service response at the scene and two engines and the aerial appliance from Chester fire station and one from Ellesmere Port were there for one and a half hours.

He said: “The gas firm Transco and electricity company Scottish Power investigated for a gas leak and electrical fault. Cheshire County Council were also involved.

“It was thought that it might have been a sewer collapse. We cordoned off the area and fully evacuated Browns.

“Once we established there was no gas leak or sewer collapse, we left the scene.

“We believe there was a slight electrical problem.”

Cheshire County Council are investigating the blast which happened in an area of block paving near steps leading up to the store and left scorch marks on the first step onto the Rows.

Cheshire County Council spokeswoman Shirley Wingfield said they had erected barriers to cordon off the area and were in contact with the utility companies to ascertain the cause.

A spokeswoman for Scottish Power said: “We sent engineers out who spent two hours on the site and found no irregularity on the network.

“No-one was off supply. We went back on Tuesday to check the network.

“We’re not sure what caused the problem but we are investigating the matter and keeping an eye on it.”