The father of a teenage girl killed in the Co Donegal explosion paid a heartbreaking tribute to his little girl.
Hugh Harper described his 14-year-old daughter Leona as a "little gem" who will be very sorely missed.
The talented rugby player was one of 10 victims killed by the blast at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough, Ireland.
She was choosing an ice-cream from the fridge ahead of a sleepover with friends when the chaos erupted on Friday afternoon.
Describing his devastating loss, Hugh told Co Donegal radio station Highland Radio: "She was very special, very, very special. She's going to be very sorely missed.
"Leona was a little gem, very outgoing, very friendly, a lovely person.
"Very quiet, laid-back, loved life, loved the outdoors, walking through fields, going fishing, spending time with friends, going to car shows."
Several people were trapped by the Co Donegal explosion which wiped out the main part of the service station which included a shop and apartments.
A major emergency plan was launched at a nearby hospital, where medics were understood to be treating several casualties.
Leona's mother Donna thanked the digger driver who found her daughter's body after a painstaking 24-hour search.
"I didn't personally know the digger driver. A massive thank you to him because he just didn't stop until he got her," she said.
"Twenty-four hours before we got her and she was the last taken out.
"The doctors and everything, everybody was amazing the way they treated the whole scene from start to finish with nothing more than respect."
Leona, was the first victim to be named in the explosion which also claimed the lives of James O Flaherty, 48, Jessica Gallagher, 24, Martin McGill, 49, Catherine O Donnell, 39, and her son James Monaghan, 13, Hugh Kelly, 59, Martina Martin, 49, Robert Garwe, 50, and his daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe, aged five.
Her parents described the past 24 hours as "hell" while her brother Anthony said he "couldn't have asked for a better sister."
Speaking after the tragedy, Hugh said: "The past 24 hours have been nothing short of hell.
"Unfortunately Leona was in the explosion in Cresslough and she didn't survive, along with nine others."
Her brother Anthony shared touching photos of his little sister on Facebook and said "I love you so much and we all love you so much."
Leona was among the youngest victims killed by the explosion along with five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe.
The youngster had gone to the shop with her dad Robert Garwe, who was also killed, to buy her mum a birthday cake.
Emergency service crews from Northern Ireland were sent across the border to help their Irish counterparts deal with the aftermath of the blast.
The taoiseach described the rescue mission as a demonstration of "solidarity and community values".
Creeslough, where the garage was located, is a small village in the north-west of Ireland, some 30 miles from the border with Northern Ireland.
The village church held mass on Saturday morning when Father John Joe Duffy told the congregation their community had been hit by "a tsunami of grief".
Police are working on the theory that the explosion was due to a gas explosion, but the exact cause is still not known.
Residents said it took place at a time when the shop would have been busy because nearby schools had just finished for the day.
