The Five Demands

Confusion remains over Derry ‘blast’ (UTV)
No clear explanation has yet been found for a blast heard in the Waterside area of Londonderry on Tuesday, despite extensive searches by police which saw dozens of people evacuated from their homes.
The loud bang was reported across the city and as far away as Drumahoe, but was loudest in the Waterside – where it shook buildings and windows.
“It was just a few minutes before five o’clock last night,” one resident, who had to leave her Dunfield Terrace home, told UTV.
“It was really loud – a sound that we haven’t heard here for years. I would be certain that it came from this side of the water because there was no echo.”
By 8pm, up to 60 people had left their homes and police were investigating reports that masked men had been seen in the area close to Spencer Road shortly after the blast.
As officers were also close by at the time, one line of enquiry is that an attempt may have been made to attack the police.
“I don’t want to play that up, I don’t want to play that down. It’s one of the lines of inquiry,” PSNI Chief Superintendent Chris Yates said.
“There were masked men seen running away from around the Dunfield Terrace area at the time, and there were reports of debris landing on the roof of a building in Spencer Road”.
PSNI Chief Superintendent Chris Yates
But other theories have also been put forward, with gas mains being checked and enquiries made into whether an exploding lorry tyre could have sparked the alert.
Such a tyre blow-out did happen at the time in the John Street area in the Cityside, directly across the River Foyle, with eye-witnesses claiming it did “sound like a bomb” – but it’s not yet clear if that would have been heard across such distances as have been reported.
Chief Superintendent Yates admits it makes the picture “fairly confusing”, but said officers had to err on the side of caution for the sake of public safety.
“Had we walked away from that last night and a curious child had picked something up this morning that detonated, then that would be a nightmare scenario.”
The decision has now been taken to reduce police cordons, with Spencer Road re-opened and residents returning to their homes.
Ongoing searches are being focused on the car park at Quarry Steps and Quarry Steps itself and police say the area may remain sealed off for the next few days, but without impact on local residents.
The cause of the explosion remains a mystery and the public are asked to remain vigilant.
DUP MLA for East Londonderry Gregory Campbell has said that if an attack on police is found to have been at the root of the blast, the community must “stand up to that”.
He added: “There can be no hiding place. All of us – every political representative, every section of the community – must decide are we going to go back to the way it was, or are we going to go forward?”
SDLP Waterside councillor Martin Reilly said that, regardless of the cause, a lot of distress had been caused to residents caught up in the incident.
“I would like to pay tribute to everyone involved in offering support and accommodation for evacuees, including church leaders and council workers,” he said.
“Hopefully police will swiftly uncover an explanation.”