Newark gas explosion: Retired company director and daughter-in-law killed as it's revealed baby was pulled from rubble
A grandfather and his daughter-in-law were killed in a suspected gas explosion as he helped to install new radiators.
Company director Leslie Rourke was helping 42-year-old son Nick and his wife Jeanette renovate the central heating system at their terraced house when a blast akin to a ‘sonic boom’ shook their street.
The couple are understood to have celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary on Saturday, just 24 hours before the tragedy.
Neighbours had reported smelling gas prior to the blast at in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Nick Rourke - who was also pulled from the wreckage - remained in a serious condition in hospital yesterday with his family at his bedside.
A debris-strewn gap remained in the terrace where the couple’s three-bedroom house once stood.
Splinters of wood, beams, bricks and metal littered the road and back garden where the house had exploded outwards.
A young family living next-door also had a lucky escape as the blast partially destroyed their home.
Rescuers told how they smashed a window of the property before the mother, who suffered a cut to the head, could pass her four-month and seven-year-old children out to safety.
Cormac Fleming was walking his dog with his children just eight feet along the road when the house exploded.
The construction worker said: ‘My youngest boy was blown off his trike.
‘The whole front of the house came down into the street and the roof collapsed in a split second.’
Scroll down for video Shock: The devastating gas explosion, which claimed two lives, reduced the terraced property in Newark to a pile of rubble Challenging: Aerial photographs reveal the gap in the row of houses where the terraced property once stood
Mr Fleming said he and another passer-by rescued the family next door after spotting a curtain moving in their blast-damaged house.
‘Me and another man smashed the window with some rubble and the mum handed us her children, before coming through herself’, he said.
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Neighbour Katie Graves, 27, was watching television with partner Jeanette Dixon, 34, when she heard the ‘sonic boom’.
‘Everything in the house just jumped and left the floor - the whole house did’, she said.
The couple ran outside and Miss Graves spotted Nick Rourke’s hand ‘hanging out of the rubble’ and managed to pull him free. She spent 45 minutes cradling him until the emergency services could take him to hospital.
Mr Rourke, 71, was a retired transport engineer who held a string of senior positions in the transport industry, including a stint at British Leyland.
He is thought to have been in the cellar of his son’s house when the property collapsed. His body was pulled from the basement area by rescue workers shortly after midnight. The body of 40-year-old Mrs Rourke, a mother-of-one, was recovered a few hours later.
On Saturday, she had posted a message to her husband to mark their anniversary.
Mrs Rourke wrote of being ‘so happy that she was able to find a best friend....soul mate, and crazy person to love.’
Their only child, Frederique, 21, an Avon lady, lives with her boyfriend Adam Harness nearby.
She tweeted a message of thanks to her friends for their support in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Collapsed: The blast - which witnesses likened to a 'sonic boom' - devastated the terraced property in Newark 'Distressing tragedy': Police said today there were serious concerns over the structural stability of neighbouring properties in the wake of the gas explosion in Newark
A family friend said: ‘Fredi is absolutely distraught, as you can imagine. She has lost her mother and her grandfather.’ Keith Isard, a Tory councillor on Bassettlaw District Council, said he had been a friend of Mr Rourke’s for more than three decades and spoke to him just days before the blast at Newark, Nottinghamshire.
The councillor said: ‘Les told me he was going around to help install some new central heating radiators. There is talk of a boiler exploding but there wasn’t one at the house.
‘Les told me they were going to get the radiators sorted and then call a plumber in to fit a boiler.’
Councillor Isard added: ‘I don’t know what has happened. Les was competent at DIY - he’d fitted radiators before - but he wouldn’t have had a blow lamp or been messing about with the gas supply. ‘
He said divorced Mr Rourke, from the nearby village of Tuxford, was a ‘great friend’ who had worked hard to help his local community.
Mr Rourke was a director of Tuxford Mine of Information Ltd, a charity which aimed to promote rural regeneration in deprived areas around Newark.
In 2009 Mr Rourke was the driving force behind the building of the Tuxford Memorial Hall.
Police said a controlled explosion would be carried out at the address.
Over 100 local people were evacuated following the blast, which saw 40 firefighters rush to the scene last night.
Wright Street remained cordoned off today as around 20 firefighters continued to work on the ruined home.
