Lights go out for Glasgow victims
CHRISTMAS lights across Britain have been turned off as a mark of respect for the victims of Glasgow’s garbage truck crash.
About 72,000 people signed up to a Facebook event page that asked participants to switch off their decorations at 9pm on Christmas Eve and hold a twominute silence to reflect on the tragedy.
Six people were killed and 10 more injured when the lorry lost control in the city’s Queen St and George Square on Monday.
Earlier the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow told a memorial mass that he wept with a woman who saw her teenage daughter and both her parents die almost right in front of her.
Jacqueline McQuade is thought to have gone to withdraw money from a cash machine during a Christmas shopping trip when her 18-year-old daughter, Erin McQuade, and parents, Jack and Lorraine Sweeney, were fatally injured.
Primary teacher Stephenie Tait, tax worker Jacqueline Morton, and Gillian Ewing were also killed when the council truck mounted the footpath before crashing into the side of the Millennium Hotel in George Square.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia told a 600-strong congregation at the city’s St Andrew’s Cathedral: ‘‘On the evening of the tragedy, I was privileged to be permitted to spend some time with one of the families who had been cruelly devastated by the incident.
‘‘I was able to witness and share the grief and sadness of a mother and of a father for their daughter, and of two daughters for their mother and father.
‘‘The distressed woman to whom I was speaking had been at the incident, she had seen her daughter and her own parents killed almost right in front of her. Can you imagine the horror? Can you imagine her sadness?
‘‘I tried to console them and comfort them. We spoke and we cried and we were silent before the abyss of their loss and the random meaninglessness of what had happened.’’
A 14-year-old girl remains in a ‘‘serious but stable’’ condition at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, one of five patients still in hospital.
Three women aged 18, 49 and 64 and a 57-year-old man – thought to be the driver – are said to be in a stable condition.
Archbishop Tartaglia said the city had been transformed from one ‘‘eagerly and cheerfully preparing for Christmas into a city of sadness and mourning’’.
He said the ‘‘bereaved and devastated families may not feel the joy of Christmas because of their deep sadness and distress’’ as he spoke of their ‘‘grief, their bewilderment, their anger, their desperation, their unanswered questions’’.