Newark gas explosion: Two dead, but baby survives

A MAN and his daughter-in-law are believed to have been killed in a suspected gas blast, police have said.

The remains of a house in Newark that was destroyed in an explosion. Picture: PA

Nottinghamshire Police said they believed Leslie Rourke, 71, and his daughter-in-law Jeanette, 40, died following the explosion at a terraced house on Sunday.

A second man, who police believe to be Mrs Rourke’s husband and Mr Rourke’s son, Nicholas Rourke, was last night recovering in hospital after suffering serious injuries in the blast.

Meanwhile, brave neighbours helped to rescue a four-month-old girl, a seven-year-old boy and a woman from the next-door house.

The remains of a house in Newark that was destroyed in an explosion. Picture: PA

They were taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham for treatment and were later discharged.

Fire crews found Mr Rourke’s body buried between the ground floor and the basement of the property in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

Ongoing searches in the rubble later revealed the body of a woman, believed to be that of Mrs Rourke.

Both bodies have now been removed from the scene.

Picture: PA

Neighbours Jeanette Dixon, 34, and Katie Graves, 27, pulled Nicholas Rourke from the rubble and stayed with him until paramedics arrived and took him to hospital. Mr Rourke remains in hospital after suffering serious injuries in the blast.

Miss Graves said: “I thought a car had gone into another car but then I saw it... Where there had been a house. There wasn’t a house there anymore. It had gone.

“We saw Nick’s hand hanging out of the rubble so we pulled him out.

“[At] the house next door the guys were smashing the window to get into the house and then I saw a baby being passed through the window.

“We tried to see if there was anyone else in the rubble but the flames were too intense. It was like a Playstation game. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“The house was everywhere. The house is on the other side of the road. It seemed to have come forward.

“By this time, they had evacuated everyone from the street.”

Describing the blast, Miss Dixon said: “We were just watching TV and then all of a sudden it was like a boom.

“People have said explosion but that’s the wrong word.

“We looked out the window and we could just see people running, screaming and smoke in the street. We run out on to the street. You couldn’t see anything it was just smoke.”

Miss Graves added: “It was like a sonic boom – like you see in the films where everything just comes together and goes bang and that’s exactly what it was like. Everything in the house just jumped and left the floor - the whole house did. It was a noise that wasn’t a normal noise.”

More than 100 people were evacuated from nearby homes as a precaution and a rest centre was set up at a nearby leisure centre.