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A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT of damage was caused by a freak weather event in Clonfert, county Galway this evening.
A black cloud descended in the east Galway village at about 7pm, tearing down trees, damaging houses and breaking tombstones in the local graveyard near St Brendan’s Cathedral.
The storm, which has been described by many locals as tornado- and twister-like, also knocked out electricity in hundreds of homes in Clonfert and nearby Banagher.
WeatherInIreland.com has described the event as a tornado, adding that it is “likely to be classified as at least an EF2 tornado on the Fujita Scale although a ground examination must be carried out to confirm this”.
One local, Róisín McDonagh, told TheJournal.ie that the “sky was really clear but then suddenly it got very, very black”.
“It was pure destruction,” she said. “The graveyard was badly damaged. Trees fell on top of tombstones.”
County Council crews are currently working to clear fallen trees.
There are no reports of any injuries but a tree is understood to have fallen on a mobile home.
Is it just me or has there been alot of crashes in that area lately?
Seems to be a lot going on in Westmeath, I’d noticed too.
Yet another tragedy on our roads. Good let’s hope he makes a full recovery
Is it a tragedy or an inevitability?
I hope nobody mentions the statistics about these early morning crashes involving young person driving and no other vehicle being involved. Otherwise the journal will delete them .
Sure even the man on the moon realises that it’s a miracle that half of these young men get their driving licences when they do when they clearly shouldn’t have passed any driving test.
And the amount of them that figuratively and literally get away with murder.
Crackdown is needed but will anyone do anything, no.
Another tick the box “accident”
– young male
– early morning
– weekend
– single vehicle incident.
Kudos on the username. I was going to take that one.
have your say