SIX young students - five Irish and an Irish American - were killed and seven others were critically injured after a balcony collapsed as they celebrated a 21st birthday party in a California apartment block.
The victims, who were all 21 or 22, had been celebrating at the apartment in the Library Gardens Complex in Berkeley.
The three women and three men who died were named last night as Ashley Donohoe, 22; Olivia Burke, 21; Eoghan Culligan, 21; Niccolai Schuster, 21; Lorcan Miller, 21, and Eimear Walsh, 21.
Mr Schuster and and Mr Culligan were former pupils of St Mary’s College in Rathmines, Dublin. Mr Miller and Ms Walsh were also both from Dublin.
Ms Donohoe was an Irish-American from Santa Rosa in California. She and Ms Burke, who was from Foxrock in Dublin, were cousins.
Some of their families were expected to arrive in the US last night.
University College Dublin (UCD) students were among the dead.
UCD President Andrew Deeks said: "On behalf of the entire University community, I wish to extend our condolences to the families and friends of those who died and to those who were injured".
Up to 14 people were on the balcony when the tragedy occurred shortly before 1am yesterday. Four died at the scene while two others died later in hospital.
Berkeley police spokeswoman Jennifer Coats confirmed that some of the seven injured during the fall had suffered life-threatening injuries.
The Republic’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said late yesterday that the victims' families have all been contacted.
Shortly after news of the deaths started to emerge, Mr Flanagan said he could confirm “with great sadness” that “young Irish citizens” had lost their lives.
Saying it had been a “horrific day” for the families of those killed in the “appalling accident”.
Mr Flanagan also revealed that the state’s Consul General in San Francisco was in “close contact” with US authorities while his department’s Consular Crisis Centre had activated its emergency response line to provide assistance to families.
Hundred of worried relatives of students spending the summer in Berkeley inundated a phoneline set up by an Emergency Consular Response Team.
The young people were on the fourth floor of the apartment complex when the balcony separated from the building and crashed in an upside down position onto the balcony below.
Victims were hurled around 40 feet down onto the pavement on Kittridge Street.
Passers-by rushed to the aid of the injured. Local resident Gerald Robinson, who drove several of those with minor injuries to hospital, described the friends as “distraught”, saying they were frantically trying to discover which of their group had been on the balcony.
“That was their whole focus,” he later told US media.
Seriously wounded survivors, one of whom required brain surgery, were taken by ambulance to accident and emergency departments at Oakland’s Highland Hospital, Sutter Alta Bates Summit Medical Centre, the Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. Most of them were suffering from wounds that were life-threatening, authorities confirmed.
The bodies of four of the victims remained on the street for several hours until they were removed by the Alameda County Coroner’s office for post mortem.
Fire fighters and police sealed off the street, which remained strewn with clothes and drinking cups belonging to people who were at the gathering, amid fears that both balconies could still crash to the ground.
Conor Maguire, a 21-year-old student from Finaghy, Co Antrim, is staying in the same apartment block where the tragedy happened.
“The first thing I knew that there was something wrong was when I heard the sirens, suddenly the sound was everywhere. It was deafening. The news helicopters were in the air very fast too," he told Belfast Live.
“I raced to the window but could only see flashing lights. But news spread very fast that something terrible had happened.
“Then it filtered through that a balcony had collapsed with people on it. Then I heard from friends that there were Irish people involved."
Mr Maguire, who is studying in Dun Laoghaire, said he was shocked by the tragedy.
“The sense of distress has been terrible," he said.
Volunteers from the Irish Pastoral Immigration Center in San Francisco travelled to the scene to offer support to those affected by the accident. Earlier, the centre posted a message on Facebook and Twitter urging all J1 students to contact their families in Ireland.
City inspectors are now trying to determine why the balcony gave way. They are focussing their inquiries on whether the 176-apartment building, which was built in 2007 and is managed by a company called Greystar, was in breach of California’s strict building codes.
The City of Berkeley ordered the property owner to immediately remove the collapsed balcony. Three other balconies in the same building were cordoned off yesterday.
The area is popular with Irish students who rent accommodation linked the University of California during the summer holidays while American college-goers are away.
One third of Irish students who travel to the United States on J1 visas head to Berkeley every year.
