The building at Gunness in Scunthorpe was packed with shoppers when a large section of the canopy roof buckled at 4pm on Friday after several days of heavy snowfall.

A Tesco spokeswoman said: “A section of the Scunthorpe store’s canopy roof furthest from the entrance collapsed yesterday afternoon due to the weight of snow.

There was nobody in the immediate area. As a temporary precaution, we evacuated the store. We are working hard to fix the damaged section.’

The £18m Tesco store at Gunness started trading in April 1992, and ranked as one of its biggest at the time.