Man fights for life after gas blast

6:19pm Sunday 30th November 2008

A man is fighting for his life after a gas explosion "like an earthquake" destroyed three flats.

The man was rescued from the scene in Wigan, Lancashire, by emergency workers along with seven other injured residents.

The man, who has not been named, is in a critical condition with serious burns in Whiston Hospital. Another man is being treated at Wythenshawe Hospital for burns and is described as serious but stable.

The pair were injured when a flat exploded in Blake Close, Worsley Mesnes.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said the "top two flats in a block of three had concertinaed into the ground floor property".

The scene was extensively cordoned off for investigators to establish the building's safety and source of the explosion. The circumstances are not thought to be suspicious.

Such was the extent of the damage an entire external wall was blown away revealing the flats' blitzed interiors. A fire raged for three hours and took 70 firefighters to extinguish.

Machine operator Ben Worthington, 18, lives across the road from the flats in Longellow Close.

He said: "It was like an earthquake and a bang at the same time. It shook the ground. Everyone ran out in the street and there were people running out of the flats. It was on fire and then it collapsed. I saw two men pulling an old woman out of the bottom flat. There was more smoke than fire at that time but it looked very dramatic."

The six people not detained at hospital suffered minor injuries and smoke inhalation.