() — An explosion at a petrol station in northwest Ireland has killed 10 people, including two teenagers and a minor, Irish police confirmed on Saturday.
Irish police said that among the 10 killed in Friday’s explosion in Donegal were four men, three women, a teenager, a teenage girl and a younger girl.
The blast occurred shortly after 3pm local time on Friday at the Applegreen petrol station outside a town called Creeslough in County Donegal.
Police said they believed it to be a “tragic accident” and the highest number of civilian casualties seen in decades in the region.
Superintendent David Kelly said, “This is a tragedy for our community. There are devastated families.”
“I want to offer, on behalf of myself and my colleagues who attended the scene, our most sincere condolences,” he added.
Speaking to national broadcaster RTE on Saturday morning, Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, also known as the Taoiseach, expressed his condolences.
Martin said: “It is absolutely devastating and very shocking in terms of the enormity of this tragedy, the scale of it. An explosion that tears apart the normalcy of a community, with people going to the store, the normal coming and going of life.”
“Community is what defines our people and we are witnessing a terrible tragedy in a wonderful community,” he said.
