A GAS pipe was fractured when a car spun out of control and crashed outside a row of shops.

Buildings had to be evacuated due to the leak, which was caused when a gas pipe was damaged when the Vauxhall Astra crashed in Derby Street at 11am yesterday.

Video footage shows the car crashing outside the Travelogue travel agency after trying to avoid hitting a car pulling out of junction into the main road.

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Nobody was hurt in the crash, including the female driver of the car, but Derby Street was shut for around 90 minutes between Peace Street and Gibbon Street while gas engineers from Cadent repaired the fractured pipe.

There was also a significant police and fire service presence in the area, while traffic heading to and from the town centre was heavily backed up.

Ahmed Kota, who works at the nearby Derby Street News newsagents, said: “I was in my room and heard this huge bang.

“The police were here quite quickly and told us we had to evacuate the building. We could smell the gas, but fortunately the engineers fixed it.”

A Cadent spokesman confirmed that the crash had damaged a service pipe, which connects the gas main under the road to the property, and that a temporary repair had been completed by engineers.

One staff member at the Al Barakah store, next door to Travelogue, added: “There was a huge boom, I didn’t know what happened. Then I started to notice the gas smell and the police came quickly to tell us to get away from the area.”