UPDATE: 5.05pm

SHOCKED residents of a Valleys street described how a car careered off the main road last night and crashed through a fence into parked cars below.

The driver of the black Vauxhall Astra escaped before the emergency services arrived on South Griffin Terrace, Blaina, which lies at the bottom of an embankment next to the A467.

Witnesses described seeing the driver get into another car which sped off.

Resident Sam Jelly, 87, was standing on his front step at 8.40pm on Tuesday night when the car crashed through the fence and started coming down the bank towards him.

“I thought it was coming straight at me so I dived back inside,” said Mr Jelly, who has lived in the street with wife Beryl, 84, for more than four decades.

“The car came through the fence and was lying on the road. I went round to see if anyone was in the car but there was nobody. There’s no end of accidents on the main road.”

Mum-of-two Rachael Phillips, 26, arrived home minutes before the crash and was putting her one-year-old son Charlie to bed upstairs when she heard a loud bang - which turned out to be the black Astra landing on her car, a Renault Laguna.

“If it had travelled a little bit further it would have been on top of us,” said Mrs Phillips, whose children’s car seats and front step were covered in glass as a result of the crash.

“It was scary. I think they were racing.”

Her husband Matt Phillips, a photographer, arrived home to find a queue of cars waiting to get onto his street.

“I got out and saw a large group of people outside my house,” he said. “I panicked thinking something had happened. If the Laguna hadn’t been there it would’ve gone through the front window.”

Mr Phillips described seeing a Hallowe’en mask, CDs, tools and a jump starter kit on the ground having fallen out of the crashed car, which landed on the Laguna’s diesel tank and wrote it off.

Neighbour Maureen Packman, 74, said she saw the driver climb the bank and get into a separate car on the main road.

“I thought two lorries had collided, it was such a loud bang,” said Mrs Packman. “Why can’t these people realise they have a lethal weapon in their hands?”

Fire fighters from Blaina, whose station is under threat of closure, were able to attend within six minutes and made the car safe.

A spokeswoman for Gwent Police said no arrests have as yet been made.

UPDATE: 9.03pm

EYEWITNESSES have described how a car left the road last night in Blaina and crashed through a barrier onto a residential street.

The driver left the scene before the fire service, police and ambulance arrived at Bournville Road in Blaina at 8.38pm, and as a result a spokeswoman for South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said there were no casualties.

Fire fighters from Blaina, whose station is under threat of closure, were able to attend within six minutes and made the car safe and left the scene at 9.04pm. Two other appliances were turned back because they were not needed.