Ten people including a schoolgirl were killed in an explosion at a gas station in Ireland’s northwest, police said Saturday suggesting a “tragic accident” may have been to blame.
The blast occurred around 3:20 p.m. (1520 GMT) Friday in the County Donegal village of Creeslough, Ireland’s police, the Garda Siochana, said in a news conference Saturday.
“The 10 casualties are four men, three women, two teenagers — a boy and a girl — and a younger girl,” said police, adding that all the victims appeared to be locals.
The death toll was not expected to rise, as no one remains unaccounted for, the police said.
Authorities are treating the incident with an “open mind” but said that “our information at this moment in time is pointing towards a tragic accident.”
Focus will turn to the causes of the incident once the search and recovery operation is completed.
Rescue efforts by Ireland’s emergency services went on through the night after the blast ripped through a gas station forecourt and a nearby apartment complex.
An aerial photograph taken after the explosion showed the gas station building was destroyed.
Two two-story residential buildings behind it had collapsed, while the facade of a similar adjacent building was blown off.
Resident Kieran Gallagher, whose house is about 150 meters (500 feet) from the scene, said the blast sounded like a “bomb.”
“I was in my house at the time and heard the explosion. Instantly I knew it was something — it was like a bomb going off,” he told the BBC.
At a service at the local church Saturday morning, Father John Joe Duffy said the community had been hit by “a tsunami of grief.”
Many emergency services vehicles remained at the scene overnight, including fire services from both sides of the border with British-run Northern Ireland. (VOA)