Waiting for news: some residents were still being kept out of their homes and outside the safety cordon at lunchtime today, due to the risk of an explosion at the gas main

Residents from Wingate Crescent, Moys Close and other roads near Mitcham Common were subject to an emergency evacuation in the early hours of this morning, after a vehicle swerved off the A236 main road and crashed into a trench that had been dug for maintenance to the gas mains. The mains pipe was “ruptured” by the impact, according to official sources.

Residents at the scene were told by the police “there was an incident involving a car at the BP garage which resulted in a major gas leak”. A safety cordon with a 200-metre radius from the crash was put in place, with all residents in homes within that area forced to evacuate.

By mid-afternoon today, though, some residents still did not know when they would get to return to their homes, if at all, or where they might be spending the night.

At around 1.30 this morning, residents from Moys Close were led in the dark across Mitcham Common to an unheated building in Croydon Cemetery. A couple of hours later, it was left to police officers to go to Croydon University Hospital to get blankets to keep people warm, as help promised from the council failed to materialise.

Wingate Close residents were taken across the common by a different route, to Galpins Road – with nothing arranged for temporary shelter for them.

“Croydon Council should be ashamed of themselves,” one of the evacuated residents said.

Another, who had been waiting for news of when they might return to their home, told iC that three hours after the emergency evacuation, “there were no council staff at the scene at all”.

By late morning, some residents were being allowed to return to their homes, though not those in accommodation closest to the crash. Engineers were still on site this afternoon, with the A236 Mitcham Road closed in both directions.

At 4pm, the latest estimate from the gas engineers and police was that it was hoped that all remaining evacuated residents would soon be allowed to return to their homes, with the safety cordon down to 27 metres from the crash site. Officials said that 11 people were still at the rest centre.

It is just over two years since a major explosion on Galpins Road, Thornton Heath, which occurred while gas mains work was being conducted nearby. Four-year-old Sahara Salman was killed in one collapsed house, while several homes on the street were destroyed.

Today, households on Mitcham Road and Rochford Way are also among those residences believed to have been evacuated.

One residential block on Wingate Crescent has 38 flats, which were all told to vacate immediately soon after the incident, at around 1.20am.

Crash point: the vehicle veered off the road into the works site, damaging the gas mains

Croydon Council issued a statement to Inside Croydon in which claimed that they had “set up an emergency rest centre for those who have been affected” and that the council “continues to support those residents with food and shelter until they can safely return to their homes”.

The official council spokesperson said that only 15 households were affected.

But evacuated residents on site who have spoken to iC of their distress in the situation maintain that the council’s version of events is untrue. They are angry that they and their families, some with young children, have been left without proper support by the local authority.

“I am fuming with Croydon Council,” one abandoned and angry resident posted on social media.

“We were woken up at 1.20am by police banging on the door,” one resident said.

They were “told to leave everything, don’t take our cars” and they “had to walk to the cemetery where we spent six hours sitting on the floor in the freezing cold being told were not allowed home.

“Croydon Council should be ashamed of themselves,” they said.

“We were told by the police that the council are trying to get buses to us so we can sit in the warm. Then two hours later we were told they have a plan in action to open a community centre. Two hours later, nothing, absolutely nothing.

“It was getting colder. The police went to Mayday [Hospital] and got blankets. Still no sign of Croydon Council.

“I had my six-year-old daughter and dog with me. There were babies out in that cold, too.

“They told us if you don’t have family or friends close by, to try and get a hotel.

“But we don’t have money for a hotel. They have now completely shut off our close, so we can’t go anywhere. I am fuming with Croydon Council.”

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the incident.

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