A HUGE blaze which sparked an explosion and caused more than £700,000 of damage at a supermarket was started deliberately.
Police said investigations are continuing into the major fire in Glasgow, which was started when thugs set a pile of rubbish ablaze.
Emergency services had to create an exclusion zone around the blaze at the Tesco store in Shettleston.
The fire was reported at 1.15pm on Wednesday after the flames spread to the store's electrical units and caused an explosion.
Detectives said the blaze caused more than £700,000 worth of damage and are now hunting for those responsible.
The rubbish had been piled up against a fence behind the Tesco store, between Old Shettleston Road and Cockenzie Street.
Scores of homes in the area were also left without power after the blast.
Police believe a group of schoolchildren who were spotted near the scene, may hold clues about the fire.Detective Sergeant Colin MacRitchie, Shettleston CID, said: "Our enquiries so far have established that there were a number of pupils from a nearby school, in the lane at the time, during their lunch break.
"They may have seen someone setting the fire or acting suspiciously."
DS MacRitchie added: "On this occasion, no one was hurt, however, a number of homes in the area were without power for two hours as a result of this reckless act."
He said the fire caused hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article