A LOCAL woman has been hailed as a hero for rescuing her grandmother from a block of flats in Rayners Lane following an explosion.

Twenty-three-year-old Reema Monji, was at home, in Drinkwater Road, when she heard a loud bang at around 8am, on Friday, February 15.

She and her mother, Surekha, rushed to the window and saw one of the top floor flats in Annan Court, Coles Crescent, had been ripped apart by a suspected gas explosion.

Reema said: "The first thing I thought was it was a bomb going off.

"It was shocking when I first saw what had happened."

She ran outside with her mother to the flats, where her grandmother, Prembai, lives.

Tiles and bricks lay in the road following the blast, which had blown out neighbouring windows and shaken nearby buildings.

She said: "I was trying to see my gran looking out of the window, but she wasn't there.

"My mum was screaming, telling me not to go in, but it hit me I had to go in and get her.

"I ran into the building, knocking on all the doors and telling people they had to get out because there had been a gas explosion."

Reema helped her 83-year-old grandmother, who has difficulty climbing stairs, to leave her first floor flat and get out of the building.

She said: "I didn't realise at the time how dangerous it was.

"I had put my life in danger because the building could have collapsed at any time."

To see video clips filmed by Reema and her mother on mobile phones at the scene of the dramatic explosion, click the link below.