Aerial footage of last night's gas explosion in New Ferry

Engineers were called to investigate the stench of gas just hours before an explosion that left 34 people injured but reportedly dismissed the concerns of local people as 'the smell of the River Mersey'.
A Chinese restaurant, dance studio and other shops were flattened after the blast last night in New Ferry, Merseyside, which demolished numerous buildings within a 50 metre radius.
The explosion was heard across the region including in Liverpool and reportedly as far away as North Wales.
It also emerged today that children were in the dance studio just an hour before it was destroyed in the explosion.
Jonathan Coxell, a retail manager, lives 200 metres from the blast in New Ferry and claims he called National Grid on Friday afternoon because of a strong smell of gas outside his home.
But the 36-year-old alleges the inspector told him the stench was 'the smell of the River Mersey' and could not find any evidence of a leak.
Jonathan said he believes gas could have built up in the dance studio, which is used a lot during the week, over the weekend when the building was closed.
The father-of-three said: 'We smelled a really bad stench of gas outside our house at about 5pm on Friday - we live about 200 metres from where the explosion was.
'But by the time the inspector arrived the smell had gone, he got the meter out but he said he thought it was probably just the smell of the River Mersey rather than gas.
'We just thought "OK, they are the experts", but we knew it definitely smelled like gas. He said there had been six reports of the smell of gas in the area including right by where the explosion was - the fact they had six inspectors out in the area the day before suggests it isn't a coincidence.
'When we heard about the explosion we immediately thought it was strange the gas board had been out the day before, then suddenly there had been this blast only 200 metres away.
Gardening company boss Pedro Matos lives in flats in the nearby village of Bromborough and also smelled gas in the area on Friday between 2pm and 2.30pm.
The 52-year-old said: 'A lot of people were complaining about the smell of gas around the area of the dance school, and there were complaints about the smell near the Village hotel too.