A Cumbrian family have described their harrowing night in Nice as they witnessed the attack that killed 84 people on Bastille Day.

John and Vanessa Pieri, of Castle Carrock, were dining with their son Josh Pieri, 25, and his girlfriend, Jennifer Jackson, 21, at a restaurant on the beach below Promenade des Anglais, the seafront promenade where a lorry ploughed into crowds.

After enjoying the fireworks, the family had just got up from their table to leave at about 10.30pm when they heard screams.

Mr Pieri, 56, said: "For a brief second [we] were perplexed but then we witnessed pedestrians running off the promenade onto our beach club metal roof and jumping off onto our tables.

"The sound and chaos was alarming.

"My son saw a lorry turning from us. Then immediately we heard gun shots.

"Everyone panicked with nowhere to go other than the staff who ushered us inside the restaurant. We were hiding in changing rooms, toilets and kitchen."

The family squeezed into a toilet cubicle with four others.

"We then heard more gun shots and it was then the panic really set in," said Mr Pieri, an insurance broker.

He estimated about 150 people were crammed into the restaurant. Some people were injured after jumping off the promenade, while others had been parted from their loved ones in the chaos.

Although people tried to comfort each other, they had conflicting information about what was going on.

"We were worried there were terrorists above us who would try and enter the restaurant or shoot through the ventilation," Mr Pieri told the News & Star .

After a two hour wait, the police arrived to escort them along the public beach to the Hotel Negresco.

"The scene we witnessed when we reached the level of the promenade was harrowing," said Mr Pieri, "Children's mangled buggies and lost shoes and what we now understand to be body bags all over the area we had only a few hours previously been dining."

The family stayed at the Hotel Negresco for a further two hours as police took statements and assessed the situation.

They then made their way back to the apartment but stayed away from the promenade.

Although Isis claimed Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who drove the lorry, was a soldier of the Islamic State, French authorities said there is no evidence linking him with any terrorist organisation.

In total, 84 people were killed, 10 were children and teenagers.

Hundreds were taken to hospital and in a speech to army reserves on Wednesday, French President Francois Hollande said 15 people injured in the attack are still in hospital "between life and death".

The Pieris paid their respects to the dead by walking the entire length of the promenade seeing individual shrines with messages of condolence and flowers partially covering the bloodstained pavement.

"It is so hard to comprehend a person could have travelled so far killing innocent people, many who would have had their backs to him as he drove on and off the pavement," said Mr Pieri.