Two bombs rocked Manchester during the morning rush hour Thursday, injuring at least 65 people and forcing police to evacuate the city center. Police blamed the Irish Republican Army.
Most of the injured were showered with glass shards when the second bomb exploded as police cordoned off a shopping district in response to a telephoned warning. One person was seriously injured, hospital officials said.The first bomb went off in the city's Parsonage commercial district at the height of the rush hour, injuring four people and badly damaging a tax office and other buildings. Police said it may have been a car bomb.
"There was a terrific noise and an enormous surge of wind," said Jim Watson, an officer with the Inland Revenue Service. "I ran to the window to have a look out, and all along the Parsonage it was chaos."
"How nobody was killed I will never know. It went off just when people were arriving for work," said another tax officer, Kevin Bean.
About 30 minutes after the first explosion, a coded warning was phoned into a suicide counseling center that four bombs had been planted in the city, police said.
"All indications are that it was the IRA," Manchester assistant chief constable Jim Paterson told reporters.
The city center was evacuated and police broadcast appeals for people to stay away. Hundreds of people poured from office blocks, and traffic snarled in the city.
The second bomb exploded near a major shopping area, Arndale, less than a mile from the first bomb.