TWO elderly sisters had a lucky escape yesterday after a bus crashed into their home, demolishing a front wall.

The single-decker First York bus ploughed into the corner of 62 Lawrence Street, York, when it failed to negotiate a corner, shortly after 8am. It smashed into the side of a parked van and hit the house, severely damaging a sitting room and an upstairs bedroom, before crashing through steel fencing into a nearby demolition site.

The bus eventually came to a halt with rubble still on its roof. No passengers were on board at the time.

Two elderly women from the house, believed to be sisters Mary Mullen and Bernadette Lake, were taken to hospital suffering from shock.

The bus driver was also taken to hospital with shock.

Firefighters had to make temporary repairs to a gas pipe damaged by the crash. Structural engineers from City of York Council were working to make the property safe last night.

Eyewitness Paul Robertson said: "I was waiting to be picked up for work when the bus came up and went straight across, hit the car and then took the corner of the house off.

"People in the house were shouting and screaming and people outside were telling them to keep calm."

The bus had just left the First York depot, in James Street, and was turning right at the bottom of the road when the driver lost control.

Police and First commercial director Peter Edwards said the crash was still being investigated. They said the male bus driver, who has not been named, would be interviewed.