DUBLIN: At least 10 people have been killed in an explosion at a petrol station in County Donegal in Ireland’s northwest, police said on Saturday.
The Garda Siochana police force said eight people had been hospitalised and that it “can now confirm 10 fatalities as a result of this incident”.
“The search and recovery for further fatalities continues” at the site in the village of Creeslough,” it said.
The cause of the Friday explosion remained unknown and police had yet to announce the launch of an inquiry.
The blast ripped through the petrol station forecourt and a nearby apartment complex.
Two two-storey residential buildings behind had collapsed, while the facade of a similar adjacent building was blown off.
Resident Kieran Gallagher, whose house is just 150m from the scene, said the blast sounded like a “bomb”. “I was in my house at the time and heard the explosion,” he told the BBC.
Many emergency services vehicles remained at the scene overnight, including fire services from both sides of the border with British-run Northern Ireland.
Gardai and civil defence were also involved, and a coastguard helicopter airlifted some of the injured from Letterkenny University Hospital to the capital Dublin.
The university hospital, some 24 kilometres from the explosion, was placed on an emergency footing to deal with “multiple injuries”, it said in a statement.
