A man narrowly escaped being crushed to death when a collapsing roof of a building in Stoke Newington crumbled just yards away from him.
The unknown pedestrian is lucky to be alive after walking out of a stretch of pavement on Stoke Newington High Street just two seconds before a pile of bricks and rubble landed there.
He was caught on CCTV on Sunday morning as a gale of up to 65mph tore the roof off the Stokey Vintage Café.
Tuggy Sahin who works at the Stokey Vintage Café told the Hackney Post: “It’s crazy.
“It was very lucky no one got hurt or no one was passing by.”
The Hackney Post is appealing to anyone who knows the man, captured on footage uploaded to Twitter, to get in touch.
The café on Stoke Newington High Street was forced to close for the day as firefighters climbed up to the roof to assess the damage.
The café stayed closed on Monday but Tuggy said the café’s owners hoped to reopen soon. He said the council would first have to deem the building safe.
A number of bus routes were diverted until the afternoon and TfL told drivers to use alternative routes.
Unaware of the man’s near escape, people made light of the incident on social media, poking fun at the café the neighbourhood, which is known as a hipster area.
One Twitter user said: “Where will all the hipsters eat breakfast?”
Another said: “Shabby chic innit? That’ll be an extra 50% for dining in an authentic ruin.”
One said: “Of course, maybe it wasn’t the wind at all but the building giving an involuntary shudder at the new café’s name.”
The café opened earlier this year and serves Mediterranean wraps and vegetable soup and contains a vintage record player and old telephone.
Severe gales swept through the south of England on Sunday. A set of falling scaffolding missing by inches a terrified couple standing in the street in West London.
Joanne was walking her dog when she saw the damage.
She said: “I don’t think anyone was hurt. The fire brigade was at the scene with ladders assessing the damage. It looks like it was the high wind that caused it.”
The UK Met Office issued two yellow weather warnings for wind, snow and ice for the week.
