Rescuers no longer expect to find survivors on Sunday under the rubble of the building which exploded and collapsed the day before on the island of Jersey, causing the death of at least three people while “a dozen” people are probably still buried.
“It is with sadness that I confirm that our search and rescue operations are now recovery operations” of the bodies of victims, Jersey Police Chief Robin Smith said on Sunday.
At least three people were killed
A gas leak is the presumed cause of this tragedy which occurred on Saturday around 6 a.m. in the capital of the island, the port of Saint-Helier in the south of the island. CCTV footage showed a fireball engulfing the three-storey beachfront building, followed by thick smoke.
At least three people were killed and “we expect to find more” victims, local police chief Robin Smith told a press conference on Sunday morning. “We have already said that it was about a dozen (disappeared), but it is difficult to assess”, he underlined. “That’s the number we hope not to reach but that’s the number we have in mind. The clearing operations “are not going to take days, they are going to take weeks”, insisted Robin Smith.
A smell of gas
The questions are multiplying Sunday after the tragedy, especially since residents had called the firefighters Friday evening, a few hours before the explosion, to complain of a smell of gas, “probable” cause of the explosion according to Robin Smith .
“Something clearly went wrong as a building exploded and collapsed,” local fire chief Paul Brown said when asked by a reporter if residents could trust their fire department. ’emergency. He said firefighters will “cooperate fully” with “honesty and transparency” to understand “what happened and why it happened”. Its priority is first to continue research to ensure the “dignity” of families. Jersey gas supplier Island Energy also said it was working with the emergency services to figure out what happened.
“Everything outside was on fire”
Two people were hospitalized on Saturday after the explosion, which shocked the small community of Jersey, a Channel Island in the English Channel. A neighbour, Anthony Abbott, told the BBC his flat windows were blown inwards by the blast. “Outside everything was on fire”, he described, considering having been “lucky”.
Jersey’s head of government, Kristina Moore, said she too was woken up by the explosion, which was heard across the island. “This is unthinkable news, we are all absolutely devastated and truly worried for the people (still missing) and for those whose lives have been lost,” she said on Sunday.
The second drama in a week on the island
This is the second drama this week on the island whose economy is based on the banking sector, tourism and fishing. On Friday, the Jersey Coastguard ended a two-day search at sea to find three sailors missing when their boat sank on Thursday morning after colliding with a ferry.
The boat, “L’Ecume II”, sank some 40 meters deep, too deep for divers to go there without specific equipment.