22/10/2009

Elderly Woman Dies In House Fire

An elderly woman has died in a house fire in Co Donegal this morning.

Early indications suggest the fire was the result of an electrical fault in a room at the rear of the property.

The alarm was raised at 3.35am when emergency services were called to the house at The Cottage, Cockhill Road, Buncrana.

A Garda patrol car, two units of the local fire brigade and an ambulance attended the scene.

The woman's body was discovered inside the property and pronounced dead on the scene at 4am. A Garda spokeswoman said the probable cause of death was smoke inhalation.

Her remains were later removed to Letterkenny General Hospital where a postmortem is due to be carried out later today.

The scene has been preserved pending a technical examination and gardaí are not treating the woman's death as suspicious at this time.

Also today, the inquest into the deaths of a family of seven in a house fire in Omagh in 2007 has been adjourned until December. The coroner said the adjournment was due to "a number of evidential matters". The case began yesterday and heard how Lorraine McGovern, Arthur McElhill and their five children died in the fire at Lammy Crescent near Omagh two years ago and also that Mr McElhill, who had convictions for sexually assaulting teenage girls, was suspected of starting the fire.

(DW/BMcC)

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