GARDAI were last night still examining the scene of yesterday's gas explosion in Clonmel town in which one woman was injured.
Ms Karen Duane was admitted to Cork University Hospital suffering from burns. Last night she was said to be still suffering from shock, but not to have been seriously injured.
The area around Ms Dunne's flat on O'Connell Street was cordoned off last night although the road remained open.
It is believed that a gas leak caused the explosion in the flat at 8.25 a.m. yesterday.
The entire roof of the flat, which is situated above a hardware shop, was blown off by the blast. The roof ended up as smouldering rubble on the empty street below.
A Garda spokesman said that there would almost certainly have been casualties and possibly fatalities if the explosion had occurred 15 to 20 minutes later, when people would have been arriving for work in nearby shops and offices and children would have been passing on their way to school.
The occupants of adjoining flats escaped injury. One man was in the shower when the wall of his bedroom was blown in by the force of the explosion.
A ballistics team from Garda Headquarters in Dublin carried out a forensic examination of the damaged building yesterday.
Bord Gais said in a statement that an initial examination of the scene indicated that natural gas had been involved. Senior engineers from the board are investigating the explosion.