We called out into the darkness ...no voice came back
Parish priest recalls devastating moment rescuers knew all hope was gone at Creeslough
CREESLOUGH parish priest Fr John Joe Duffy has recalled the harrowing moments when he stood at the top of the village with hundreds of his friends and neighbours as they hoped against hope that survivors could still be found under the rubble of the destroyed Applegreen garage.
It was late on October 7 and darkness had already fallen, and even though the lights along the main street of the Co. Donegal village were turned off, the beams from specialist searchlights scanned what remained of the forecourt and shop.
A lone voice broke the night silence, repeatedly calling out: ‘Can anyone hear?’
Fr John Joe recalls: ‘That was very difficult that night, walking up there and looking at men who wanted to go and pick up every piece [of rubble]. When the search and rescue team came then there was that desperate desire, deep within our hearts, waiting to hear when they would shout “can anyone hear?”.
‘We were all standing there waiting to hear that voice… but, unfortunately, no voice came back to say “yes”. They were shouting every so often, “Can you hear us? Can anyone hear us? Can anyone hear us?”.
‘They put off all the lights and the Urban Search and Rescue team from Northern Ireland put on their own lights and there were people there with search and rescue dogs and the dogs were in there sniffing, they could pick up the scent of someone if they were alive.
‘It was just surreal… there were hundreds of local people there waiting to help, and not just local people, and they were all waiting to hear the voice coming back.
‘Family members were there as well, waiting to hear those voices. There were family members not knowing at that time whether their loved one was inside or not and that was really hard.’
‘The overwhelming image was the pain and sadness in their faces’
The priest said some family members of the victims had to wait through the whole night before the worst fears were finally confirmed.
He said: ‘There were some [bodies] brought out within the first hour and a half and the others were brought out from 6am [the following morning] until around one o’clock the next day when the last person was taken out.’
As the hours passed, it became obvious that, despite so many expert lifesavers on site, the rescue mission was now a search operation.
Recalling the moment when the sheer scale of the tragedy began to dawn on those gathered at the site, Fr John Joe told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The overwhelming image for me was the pain and the sadness in the faces of others and in my own heart. You wanted to believe when you arrived there that there would only be casualties as opposed to fatalities.
‘And then when you saw the first person been brought out and then the second person been brought out and the third person been brought out in quick succession to each other.
‘The scale of it became too apparent and something that I didn’t want to believe was happening, and then the fact that people were missing inside. Some of their loved ones went to the hospital looking for them. It was being managed as best as it could by anyone, but it was chaotic for these people.’
The cause of the explosion is still being investigated by gardaí.
The victims were 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin; 48year-old father-of-one James O’Flaherty; 49-year-old Martin McGill; 59-year-old farmer Hugh Kelly; 24-year-old fashion designer Jessica Gallagher; 39-year-old Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; 14-year-old schoolgirl Leona Harper; and 50-year-old Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter, Shauna
Flanagan Garwe.
Gardaí are still guarding the site this weekend, even though the petrol pumps, the canopy overhanging the garage and most of what remained of the business and apartment complex have been removed.
Since the explosion, two separate court orders have been granted to protect the site. Gardaí have until November 27 to preserve the scene and are being assisted with their inquiries by international experts.
Fr John Joe said the families of the ten people who died in the explosion and those of the eight people hospitalised in the wake of the blast, are anxious for the Garda investigation to conclude soon.
The priest told the MoS: ‘You cannot compare it to The Troubles because this was an accident, but it has taken a toll on everyone.
‘Everyone has been affected, from those who responded first, to the fire services, to the ambulance people. Everyone has been traumatised by it … the gardaí … it has had such a huge impact not just on our community, but all the people who came
into our community. All those people driving home from work who got a call, “come help there’s been an explosion at the shop and petrol station in Creeslough”.
‘Nobody wants anyone to ever go through that again but if there’s anything we can learn from it that’s the primary reason for the investigation. It’s only right that every one of us wants to know what happened, of course and the families have a right to know what happened.’
Walking through the picturesque little village that overlooks an arm of Sheephaven Bay, its difficult to imagine life returning to normal.
Despite their grief, locals are quietly determined that better days lie ahead. Work has begun on a temporary shop. The post office, which was also located at the Applegreen forecourt store, has re-opened in new premises on the village street.
The boarded-up site where the forecourt and little supermarket that was the social and commercial heartbeat of Creeslough is a stark reminder of the terrible loss. Fr John Joe told the MoS: ‘The shop was such a hub. In seconds you would meet people; you would chat to people. The shop was really the place with the greatest mix of people. You would meet people staying at the Wild Atlantic camping grounds and, God, I met more people coming into the shop that I maybe hadn’t seen in years because they were passing through.
‘I find it difficult even now when I go into a shop. The first time I went into a shop during that sad week I just kept asking myself how could this happen in the shop?
‘It just struck me at that moment there was Martina Martin talking to me just several days before. We would have chatted so often, joking with each other.
‘I was thinking this girl in this other shop was carrying out the same role as Martina had and I just couldn’t say goodbye to the poor girl because I just had no words. I would have broken down.’