Jersey’s energy company is facing questions over the deaths of up to nine people after the island’s fire chief said his officers handed over a reported gas leak to the firm seven hours before a block of flats blew up.
Paul Brown, Jersey’s chief fire officer, said his service attended the Haut du Mont flats in St Helier on Friday evening at 8.36pm, and responsibility for the case was passed to Island Energy by 9.01pm.
He said it would be inappropriate for the fire service to comment further, as it was announced that an independent investigation was being launched into the cause of the fireball that engulfed the three-storey block at 4am on Saturday.
“It’s my intention to commission independent experts to investigate the cause of the fire and the explosion,” Brown said.
A spokesperson for Island Energy confirmed that its staff attended the site on Friday evening but declined to comment further. On Monday, Jo Cox, the Islands Energy Group chief executive, said the Haut du Mont flats had not been connected to the island’s gas network.
The spokesperson said: “We can confirm that an Island Energy engineer did attend the site on Friday night along with the Jersey fire service. We are currently working with the fire service and other relevant parties to investigate exactly what further steps were taken and so we cannot comment further at this time.”
The development came as police made public the identities of a further two people who remain missing after the blast. Ken and Jane Ralph, 71 and 72, join Romeu and Louise De Almeida, 67 and 64, Derek and Sylvia Ellis, 61 and 73, Peter Bowler, 72, Raymond Brown, 71, and Billy Marsden, 63, in being named as those believed to have been killed.
Seven bodies have been recovered. Jersey’s police chief, Robin Smith, said: “The families are being supported by specially trained family liaison officers. The fatalities have not yet been formally identified.
“The disaster victim identification process must be carefully considered and managed in a dignified and compassionate way. Therefore, we are not yet able to confirm if the fatalities that have been found at the site correspond to the seven identities released by the missing Islanders families yesterday afternoon.”
The entire gas network in Jersey is currently under investigation.
