YORKSHIRE Ambulance Service’s Urban Search and Rescue team was sent to London to help after a massive explosion destroyed three homes.

A 26-year-old man died and a 17-year-old girl was badly burned after the explosion ripped through the homes on Stanley Road in Harrow, north London, at 9.30pm on Wednesday.

The blast is being treated as suspicious and murder squad detectives are investigating.

The ambulance service’s rescue team was called in at 7am on Thursday and arrived in London later that morning to provide support to London Ambulance Service and London Fire and Rescue Service’s own USAR team.

The Yorkshire team returned home on Friday afternoon.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service was the first ambulance trust in this country and Europe to have an Urban Search And Rescue Team and is now one of only three ambulance services in the UK to have such a team.

The team consists of specially-trained and equipped emergency medical technicians and paramedics who can provide a specialised response in precarious rescue operations – including places where access is extremely difficult.

This is the second time in two weeks the team has been mobilised. The previous incident was the explosion at a disused pub in Leeds.