Rayleigh road sweeper crashes into house

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A road sweeper careered into the dining room of a house, narrowly avoiding a family who were feeding their rabbit at the time.

The vehicle smashed into the house in Claremont Crescent, Rayleigh, Essex, on Tuesday morning.

The house was left structurally unsound and had to be shored up by fire crews.

Station Officer John Tidbury said the two parents and their child were "extremely lucky that they were not seriously hurt."

"The lorry had collided into the kitchen-diner of the house at around breakfast time," he said.

"Luckily the family had gone into the back garden to feed their pet rabbit at the same time the lorry struck their house.

"If they had all been sitting at their dining room table at the time the lorry hit the property, the situation could have been far worse."

Two fire crews and an urban search and rescue team worked to make the house safe.