A SUPERMARKET had to be evacuated after harmful gases threatened shoppers and staff. Hundreds of people left Morrisons in Liskeard on Sunday after a cloud of toxic fumes set off the fire alarms. Firefighters from Liskeard, Callington and Bodmin all went to the incident which was caused by a compressor failure which ruptured a refrigerator hose. This led to the leaking of refrigerator gas and oil, which mixed to form a cloud of smoke. Members of staff had to evacuate to the far end of the car park while others diverted long queues of traffic away from the store on one of its busiest trading days. 'On our arrival the store was evacuated and praise must go to the person who made that decision,' said Liskeard fire brigade's station officer Robert Collins. 'We have a standard procedure of dealing with all incidents involving hazardous chemicals so we were there for around three hours.' A spokeswoman for Morrisons said: 'We had to close for several hours and would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.'