Six people, five adults and a child, were taken to hospital following the incident and a man in his 30s remains in a critical but stable condition.

A seven-year-old boy who died in a house explosion in Newcastle has been named locally as Archie York. The youngster died after an explosion ripped through the terraced house on Violet Close, in the Benwell and Elswick area of the city, shortly before 1am on Wednesday.