Three people confirmed dead as searching continues at petrol station blast site

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “What I’m appealing for is for the prayers of the people across this county and across the country, to pray for us, to help us and to give us strength to get through these difficult hours and difficult days that may lay ahead.” Donegal TD Joe McHugh said friends and families were going through a very difficult waiting period. “We’re just waiting here, my sympathies and thoughts are with a lot of families here and their friends and loved ones, there is a very difficult waiting period now,” he told PA. “People have pulled together and emergency services are there and doing their work, working carefully through this very, very difficult time. Just thinking of this very closely knit community that are still clinging on to hope, but they know that it’s going to be a difficult time ahead.” Fellow TD Pearse Doherty said that people were still trapped in the building on Friday evening as the emergency services worked to remove the rubble from the area. The Donegal TD said: “Thinking of the emergency services personnel involved this evening too.” Multiple emergency service vehicles remained at the scene on Friday night while a Coastguard helicopter airlifted some of those who were injured in the blast from Letterkenny University Hospital to Dublin.