Lucky escape for cashpoint users after manhole explosion

A mother and her two children narrowly avoided being killed after a manhole exploded as they stood just feet away. The woman was with her young son and daughter and had been using a cashpoint outside the Abington Supermarket in Northampton when the explosion occurred. The petrified family then ran for their lives as the manhole cover shot into the air and clattered to the ground nearby. The force of the blast also ripped part of the newsagent’s shop sign down, which narrowly avoided colliding with the head of the young boy.



Emergency services were called to the scene and the mother was treated by paramedics but nobody was seriously injured. Sela Rajesh Kumar, 28, who has run the newsagents for 12 years, said his family thought a bomb had gone off outside their shop. He said: “My brothers were working at the time when they heard this almighty bang that shook the foundations of the shop. “They thought a bomb had gone off. It was very frightening. When we looked at the footage we could not believe how lucky the family were.



“They came in later that day and I showed them the footage. They left the shop a different colour than they came in. They were okay though, quite shaken but just glad to be alive. They were very lucky, they were literally just a few feet away and could have been a very different outcome if they were standing a couple of yards to their left. Nothing has ever happened like this before. It was very scary.” A spokesman for Northamptonshire Fire Service said the cause of the explosion was an electrical fault in an underground box.

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An East Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman added: “An ambulance attended to treat a woman who had been walking in the area with two children when the cover flew into the air, but there were no serious injuries.” A spokesman for Western Power said: “We have conducted it in stages so as to minimise disruption as much as possible, but we apologise to residents for any inconvenience caused.” The sound of the explosion was heard by residents in Northampton town centre – almost two miles away.