Creeslough filling station explosion

Started by markl121, October 07, 2022, 04:37:13 PM

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WT4E

Quote from: Walter Cronc on October 09, 2022, 02:12:31 PM
Picture of that wee 5 year old would break your heart. God love all of them!

Found in her fathers arms.. absolutely heart wrenching stuff!


Orior

I hope that some of the donations go towards a holiday for the priest who said Mass for every deceased person.
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

BrotherMore6592

Does anybody know or was it confirmed what actually happened? What was the cause of the explosion?

Armagh18

Quote from: BrotherMore6592 on October 17, 2022, 11:06:18 PM
Does anybody know or was it confirmed what actually happened? What was the cause of the explosion?
A gas leak from one of the apartments apparently.

JPGJOHNNYG

A gas leak for sure but it wil be a case of seeing if it was a tragic accident or whether someone had been messing with the gas line.

Jeepers Creepers

is it just me or is it crazy (from a planning perspective) that you can have residential apartments basically on the forecourt of a petrol station?

Cavan19

Quote from: Jeepers Creepers on October 18, 2022, 10:34:41 AM
is it just me or is it crazy (from a planning perspective) that you can have residential apartments basically on the forecourt of a petrol station?

I don't see any problem with it.

armaghniac

Quote from: JPGJOHNNYG on October 18, 2022, 09:35:05 AM
A gas leak for sure but it wil be a case of seeing if it was a tragic accident or whether someone had been messing with the gas line.

They have brought in Norwegian experts to investigate.
I'm sure there will be lesson learned from this, which is cold comfort, but surely one of those lessons is more sensors in this day and age. A gas detector should have sounded an alarm and shut off the gas.
If at first you don't succeed, then goto Plan B

trailer

Quote from: armaghniac on October 18, 2022, 10:59:09 AM
Quote from: JPGJOHNNYG on October 18, 2022, 09:35:05 AM
A gas leak for sure but it wil be a case of seeing if it was a tragic accident or whether someone had been messing with the gas line.

They have brought in Norwegian experts to investigate.
I'm sure there will be lesson learned from this, which is cold comfort, but surely one of those lessons is more sensors in this day and age. A gas detector should have sounded an alarm and shut off the gas.

There must have been some leak. That was a fierce explosion and it would be LPG gas as the mains doesn't go that far.

bennydorano

Quote from: Cavan19 on October 18, 2022, 10:47:34 AM
Quote from: Jeepers Creepers on October 18, 2022, 10:34:41 AM
is it just me or is it crazy (from a planning perspective) that you can have residential apartments basically on the forecourt of a petrol station?

I don't see any problem with it.
Good to know, not as if there's an unexplained tragedy that might prove otherwise.

Wildweasel74

Was there not a big gas tank at the back of the building?

HiMucker

Quote from: bennydorano on October 18, 2022, 04:52:21 PM
Quote from: Cavan19 on October 18, 2022, 10:47:34 AM
Quote from: Jeepers Creepers on October 18, 2022, 10:34:41 AM
is it just me or is it crazy (from a planning perspective) that you can have residential apartments basically on the forecourt of a petrol station?

I don't see any problem with it.
Good to know, not as if there's an unexplained tragedy that might prove otherwise.
I don't think the petrol station had anything to do with it though??

seafoid

Quote from: Jeepers Creepers on October 18, 2022, 10:34:41 AM
is it just me or is it crazy (from a planning perspective) that you can have residential apartments basically on the forecourt of a petrol station?
I was thinking the same thing
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

seafoid

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/01/31/creeslough-digger-driver-who-worked-for-24-hours-done-what-anyone-else-would-have-done/

Creeslough digger driver who worked for 24 hours 'done what anyone else would have done'
Henry Gallagher speaks for first time in new TG4 documentary about aftermath of Donegal disaster


Henry Gallagher was spurred on by the sight of concerned family and friends at the site of the explosion. Photograph: TG4
Freya McClements
Tue Jan 31 2023 - 14:54

A digger driver who worked for 24 hours until the body of the last of the Creeslough explosion victims was recovered from the rubble has said he did what anyone else would have done.

"I wanted them out. I would have stayed in that digger for ages after that just until I got the bodies out," Henry Gallagher said in his first public comments about the tragedy in Co Donegal last year.

Mr Gallagher was speaking to TG4 for the opening programme of its new current affairs series, Iniúchadh TG4, which will be broadcast next Wednesday. It investigates how people in Creeslough came together in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and searched through the debris to try to rescue their neighbours before the emergency services arrived.

Lorry driver Colin Kilpatrick, from Raphoe, Co Donegal, was making a delivery in Creeslough when he witnessed the explosion and was among the first rescuers at the garage forecourt. He managed to help free one of the injured by using a car jack to lift concrete slabs.



Ten people – Shauna Flanagan Garwe (5); her father Robert Garwe (50); James Monaghan (13); his mother Catherine O'Donnell (39); Leona Harper (14); Jessica Gallagher (24); James O'Flaherty (48); Martina Martin (49); Martin McGill (49); and Hugh Kelly (59) – died in the explosion at the Applegreen service station and apartment complex in the village last October.


The cause of the blast remains under investigation. One line of inquiry is that it was an accidental gas explosion.

Mr Gallagher (47), from Treantagh near Letterkenny, told TG4 he volunteered to take part in the recovery operation following a plea for help from fire officers at the scene.

"One of the lead firemen came up to me and described that there's so many bodies inside, and we can't get at them," he said.

He remained in the cab of his digger for 24 hours removing rubble and said he was spurred on by the sight of grieving relatives in his rear-view mirrors.

"You just see a river of high vis vests [behind me] and I know that among that, there are families waiting on news," he said. "The only way that they are going to get the news of a loved one being taken out, is for me to get in."

He refused to stop working until he had recovered the last of the bodies, that of Leona Harper. At her funeral, her mother, Donna, thanked Mr Gallagher for working until he found her daughter.


"I done what any other person would have done," Mr Gallagher said. "The ordinary people were amazing. I mean, I've heard stories of people running into the building, people bringing other people out of the building. They were taking people out and they were crying [and] they were screaming. Any person we took out, wasn't crying or screaming."

The programme is the first in a new six-part monthly current affairs and investigative documentary series that will look behind the headlines of significant Irish news stories.

Presented by award-winning Belfast-based investigative journalist Kevin Magee, it is the first new current affairs strand made in Irish for a number of years and will be made in Belfast for TG4 by Clean Slate TV.

"At the time of the tragic event in Creeslough, we heard about the extraordinary bravery and courage of the first wave of rescuers, local people who ran to help their trapped neighbours before the emergency services got there," said Mr Magee.

"This programme gives the ordinary people who helped a voice and hears in their own words the extraordinary things they did, often at great danger to themselves in the face of appalling adversity."

Iniúchadh TG4 is on TG4 on Wednesday, February 8th at 9:30pm and will also be available to view worldwide on the TG4 Player.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU