SDLP Northland Councillor John Boyle has expressed relief that no-one was killed or injured after the collapse of a three-storey building in the Fountain estate of L'Derry.

The building in Kennedy place which was once a synagogue and is the former headquarters of the Ulster Unionist Party in the City collapsed and buried a car belonging to a local resident.

The building has been derelict and fallen into a state of disrepair over the last twenty years.

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Mr Boyle said: "In many ways local people were very fortunate that this collapse did not happen at a busier time of day.

"Needless to say the potential for a catastrophe was always there and had it happened at school time or at the beginning or end of the working day, we may well have been dealing with fatalities and injuries.

"The Foyle Day-care Nursery is only yards away from the scene and it is horrifying to think of the consequences for infants and parents at drop off and pick up times.

"It is only by the grace of God that everyone in the vicinity of this collapse was uninjured.

"It is long past the time that statutory agencies carried out a full audit of derelict buildings in the Derry City Council area and potentially throughout the North."

(CD)