Bantry hosts memorial service for Betelgeuse victims

A memorial service is taking place in Co Cork to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1979 Betelgeuse disaster.

Fifty-one people died when the French oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded and sank in Bantry Bay on January 8, 1979.

The explosion happened as the ship was discharging its cargo of Saudi crude oil on a jetty off Whiddy Island.