- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Pramod Thomas
Sukhdev Singh, 39, has said that it was a ‘miracle’ that his family survived the gas explosion ripped through their flat in Southall, west London, last week.
His five-month-old baby daughter Manseerat was rescued by a ‘hero’ fireman following the blast.
“There was dust everywhere. My concern was to get my daughter out. We were scared, then out of the dust came the fireman who took my daughter. He was a real hero, I can’t thank him enough. He saved my daughter’s life,” Singh told the Evening Standard.
“It’s a miracle we are alive and we would like to thank the fire service and the local temple for helping us.”
Singh, his wife Jasbir, 30 and daughter sought refuge in a nearby temple after the explosion and later moved with family and friends.
The blast, which killed two people, destroyed a mobile phone shop and a neighbouring hair salon.
London Fire Brigade (LFB) said the bodies were found in a flat above the phone store, and they have not been formally identified.
LFB used specialist equipment including search dogs to look for people trapped inside the collapsed shop and the property above.
People living two streets away said their homes “shook” from the force of the blast, and many of them were woken up by “what sounded like a bomb exploding”.
Following the accident, some 50 people were evacuated from nearby homes. An investigation into the cause of the blast was under way.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that an “early assessment suspected the cause to be a gas explosion”, but that the “exact cause at this time is not yet known.”
