HUNDREDS of Liverpool shoppers were evacuated from a high street store after an incident at an electrical sub- station.
Police cordoned off a large section of Church Street at about 1.30pm yesterday after acrid smoke billowed from an underground installation.
City centre firefighters were called out as Scottish Power engineers worked on the fault. Fears were raised that scaffolding outside Marks and Spencer and Keys Court could be made live by the fault.
An eye-witness said: "The street got blocked off so suddenly that we were herded into a space that can't have been more than about eight metres across.
"There were people with prams and people with walking sticks all getting squashed up against each other. It was so sudden that people coming from both directions were all colliding with each other."
Shoppers said they recalled a similar incident happening two weeks earlier.
