Shock as pavement 'explodes' in quiet Chichester street

At about 10.45am yesterday (Sunday, August 21) the corner of St John’s Street and New Town was left covered in dust after an apparent electrical explosion sent debris flying into the air.

No injuries have been reported.

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she saw another woman narrowly avoid the blast after walking over an electricity cable cover.

She described the explosion as ‘very loud’ and said the black bollards on the street ‘shook’.

She said: “It narrowly missed myself and another lady who was also walking up to the junction. She was ahead of me and was less than a few seconds from stepping on to the cover when it exploded.

“It was witnessed by a lady with a pram who was opposite junction when it exploded, a gentleman and the local parking attendant. The gentleman called the electricity company and the parking attendant came running down the road.

“It was quite frightening and all of us who saw it were quite shocked and counted ourselves very lucky not to be injured.”

Part of the street was then cordoned off while electrical engineers attended the scene.

A spokesperson for SSE (Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks) said: “On Sunday morning we received reports of damage to our network.

"Engineers arrived promptly on site and identified faults within an underground link box. This was made safe and engineers will return to site to make full repairs later this week. No customers lost supply as a result of this fault.”