Firefighters were called to a report of an exploding pavement in Monk Bar in York after the slabs were raised by an underground electrical cable short circuiting.

A fire crew from York cordoned off the area after the incident just after 6pm on Wednesday.

North Yorkshire fire service said no one was hurt and there was no actual fire involved but smoke was coming out of the pavement.

A spokesman said: “There were two raised paving slabs on the pavement and smoke was coming from the hole.”

There was no traffic disruption and by 7.40pm fire fighters had established the cause was an electrical short circuit.

The cordon was lifted and the 999 workers handed over control of the incident to experts from Northern Powergrid.

The electrical company said the fault involved a joint in a low voltage underground cable.

Power supplies were not affected and the Monkbar Hotel said no problems had been reported.

It took until 1.34pm yesterday to repair the damage.

The section of cable was isolated and the pavement dug up by specialist engineers, who then removed the damaged part and rejoined it.