US store clerks dive into safe room as armed thieves start shooting

A pair of US convenience store clerks have narrowly escaped a trio of armed thieves after diving into a safe room.

Surveillance video from a Houston convenience store filmed last Friday showed the male and female clerks race for a security room as armed thieves fired warning shots into the air.

The woman managed to pull shut the safe room door mere seconds before one of the men grabbed the handle.

The men tried kicking and shooting the reinforced door but were are unable to gain access to the room containing the store's money.

One of the men can be seen stealing a customer's wallet before fleeing relatively empty handed.

Cashier Noor Kadiwala told ABC the men burst in and started "shooting everywhere".

"They came in like crazy,” Kadiwala said.

"At that point of time, nobody thinks anything. I was just down on the floor, crawling back and forth. People who are outside assumed that we were dead because they heard so many shots fired."