1665240496 In Ireland an explosion at a petrol station kills nine

In Ireland, an explosion at a petrol station kills nine people

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Police forensic investigators survey the area around a sealed off petrol station in north Belfast January 23, 2017 after a police officer was shot dead on January 22. - A man has been arrested after a Belfast police officer was injured in a suspect's drive-by shooting on Sunday, which came down to one, according to the Police Federation of Northern Ireland PAUL FAITH v AFP Police forensic officers investigate the area around a sealed off petrol station in north Belfast January 23, 2017 after a police officer was shot dead on January 22. – A man has been arrested after a Belfast police officer was arrested and injured in an alleged drive-by shooting on Sunday in what the Police Federation of Northern Ireland has said amounted to a “terrorist gun attack”. The police officer was hit in the arm after several shots and the officer was taken to hospital for surgery. (Photo by Paul FAITH / AFP)

PAUL GLAUBE / AFP

An explosion at a petrol station in north-west Ireland killed seven people on Friday evening October 7th. (illustratively, police officers survey the area around a closed off petrol station in north Belfast on 23 January 2017)

IRELAND – The sound of a bomb. At least nine people have been killed in an explosion at a petrol station in northwest Ireland, police said on Saturday October 8. In addition, eight people have been hospitalized while the search for possible other victims continues.

However, police have given no explanation as to the origin of this explosion, which occurred in the village of Creeslough, some fifty kilometers from the Northern Ireland border, this Friday afternoon.

Relief at war

An aerial view taken after the explosion shows the destroyed gas station building. Two two-story apartment buildings behind it collapsed. Local resident Kieran Gallagher, whose home is about 150 meters from the scene, said the detonation made him think of a “bomb”: “I was at home when I heard an explosion. (โ€ฆ) It was like a bomb,โ€ he told the BBC.

The emergency services worked all night. Irish Police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance and Coastguard, the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance Service and a team of British provincial specialists were again on the scene this morning. Letterkenny University Hospital, 15 miles from the gas station, was placed on an emergency basis and said it was attending to “multiple injuries”.

Damage reminiscent of the “Troubles”.

In a statement, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said his “thoughts and prayers (are) today with those who lost their lives and were injured in this devastating blast”. “People across the island are being struck by this tragic loss of life with the same sense of shock and utter devastation as are the people of Creeslough,” he said, thanking members of the emergency services “who spent the night in extremely traumatic circumstances โ€œ had worked.

Agriculture Secretary Charlie McConalogue, an elected official from the blast-hit region, compared the scenes of the devastation to those of the Northern Ireland conflict in the second half of the 20th century. “The scenes of the event are reminiscent of images from The Troubles years ago in terms of damage and debris.”

For three decades, the conflict in Northern Ireland pitted itself against nationalists, mainly Catholics, who favored the reunification of the island of Ireland, and loyalists, mainly Protestants, who clung to keeping the province under the British Crown. This conflict claimed around 3,500 lives.

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