Antrim gas blast 'caused deliberately'

A gas explosion in which 50 homes had to be evacuated may have been caused deliberately, police said today.

Flames shot 30ft in the air from the natural gas pipeline at Station Road, Greenisland, Co Antrim during last night’s incident.

A PSNI spokeswoman said: “A concrete cover appears to have been removed and as a result of the fire a plastic pipe had melted, causing a metal valve to come loose and a jet of gas had ignited.”

She added detectives had removed a number of items for examination and were appealing for witnesses to come forward.

There were 80-100 people forced from their homes following the alert.

Residents were evacuated for four hours as emergency services dealt with the incident at around 10pm.

Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Group Commander William Kavanagh said flames from the Phoenix Natural Gas leak soared into the air.

“It was quite spectacular. It was not a difficult incident but the potential for danger was there,” he said.

“Thankfully nobody was hurt and there was no damage to property, it was simply a case of turning off the gas.”

He said Phoenix was investigating how the incident happened.

Mr Kavanagh added half the affected homeowners were housed in two local church halls while firefighters dealt with the incident.

In a separate incident on Thursday, up to 600 houses in the Coleraine area had to be evacuated due to smoke from the fire at a medical equipment plant.

Much of the plant in Wattstown Business Park will have to be demolished.