AN elderly Southampton woman is today recovering in hospital after an incredible escape when a gas explosion ripped her home apart.

Grandmother Queenie Dear grandmother had been cooking her breakfast at her bungalow home in Peartree Green when the explosion went off at 6.30am yesterday morning.

Neighbours told how they were woken by the sound of a massive blast and rushed outside to find the property almost completely destroyed, with the walls caving in and the back of the house flattened.

Emergency services arrived on the scene at Elstree Road just minutes later and pulled the 91-year-old pensioner from the wreckage before rushing her to Southampton General Hospital.

She is understood to have escaped with only minor burns and cuts, and was today being comforted in Southampton General Hospital by her family.