Stunned and somber Olympic organizers are vowing not to let Saturday's deadly terrorist bomb blast shatter the spirit of the 1996 Summer Games.
But the damage has already been done.The 1:25 a.m. pipe bomb detonation during a rock concert in Centennial Olympic Park killed a woman identified as Alice S. Hawthorne, 44, a mother from Albany, Ga. Her 14-year-old daughter remains hospitalized.
A Turkish television photographer, Melih Uzunyol, 40, died of a heart attack while rushing to film the scene. Some 110 others near the AT&T Global Olympic Village stage suffered mostly minor injuries.
What had been just another late-night celebration turned into a terrorist target - the first at an Olympics since 18 people died in 1972 when Palestinians took Israeli athletes hostage at the Summer Games in Munich, then-West Germany.
As of late Saturday night, no organization had claimed responsibility for the blast, and the park, intended to be the central gathering place for Olympic visitors, remained closed.
Less than five hours after the bombing, the International Olympic Committee announced that the Games would continue. The Summer Games began July 19 and are scheduled to end Aug. 4.
The decision was made in consultation with President Clinton and federal, state and local leaders, including the attorney general and the director of the FBI.
"We will spare no effort to find out who was responsible for this murderous act," Clinton said in a White House press briefing. "And meanwhile, we are all agreed, the Games will go on."
So did the threat of more mayhem.
In the first 10 hours after the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, FBI Special Agent-In-Charge Woody Johnson said bomb disposal teams had been sent to 35 different locations.
Saturday evening, authorities ordered the evacuation of the popular Underground Atlanta shopping and entertainment center to investigate a suspicious device.
Nearby stations for Atlanta's light-rail transportation system, MARTA, closed for at least an hour forcing many Olympic ticket-holders to walk more than a mile to downtown venues.
The victims of the park bombing were acknowledged at the Games with the lowering of both the Olympic and the Turkish flags to half-mast and by observing a moment of silence at all events.
Throughout Saturday, Olympic organizers stressed that they would not give in to terrorism. Most said there is little more that could have been done to prevent the tragedy.
"We have implemented, as you know and as everybody has experienced, very tight security measures at the venues," Billy Payne, head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, told NBC's Tom Brokaw Saturday morning.
Jacques Rogge, an IOC member from Belgium who competed in yachting in the troubled Munich Games, said he was "sadly shocked" to hear about the park bombing.
"ACOG is not to blame," Rogge said. "We have reached a level (of security) that could hardly be augmented."
But Gerald Heiberg, an IOC member from Norway who was chairman of the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, suggested that security could have been tighter. "I don't think in the United States you are very security conscious and you should be," Heiberg said.
"I'm not very happy. It's not what we needed at this stage," he said. "These (Games) should be as safe as Lillehammer, but unfortunately, things like this happen. They will always happen."
Heiberg serves on the IOC panel coordinating the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He said he is confident that Utah organizers "know what is necessary."
Tom Welch, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, agreed. "Security is an issue you don't compromise on. We're still in the process of defining what is enough."
Especially when it comes to protecting a downtown park proposed by Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini that would be used for medal ceremonies during the 2002 Games as well as other Olympic events. As with Atlanta's Centennial Park, it would be open to the public.
After Saturday's bombing, Welch said he's not sure anymore that will work. He said Utah's Olympic organizers will have to decide whether they even want a park and, if so, how much security would be necessary.
What the mayor is suggesting would be similar to Atlanta's park, which was dreamed up by Payne as a way of including more people in the Olympic celebration. There are no security checks at the state-owned park, which is open free to the public.
At competition venues, either a ticket or proper Olympic credential is needed for entry. Once inside, everyone passes through a security check similar to an airport's. Still, the system isn't foolproof. At the beginning of the Games, a man with a loaded gun wandered through Olympic Stadium before being apprehended.
Security was stepped up Saturday. Apparently all Olympic buildings, including media facilities, were closed down in the early morning hours to check for bombs.
Troops of soldiers, already deployed to serve as security for the Games, marched up and down streets helping local police enforce barricades set up to aid federal investigators in the park.
Their work was expected to continue at least through Sunday. The earliest the park could reopen is Sunday night, according to A.D. Frazier, ACOG chief operating officer.
Investigators, visible from a third-floor cafeteria in the Main Press Center, spent much of Saturday recovering shrapnel and other evidence from the explosion.
They also dusted a bank of pay telephones believed to be the source of a warning call received less than 20 minutes before the blast by a caller described as sounding white with a slight Southern accent.
The caller reportedly told authorities a bomb would explode in the park within 30 minutes. Police on the scene spotted a backpack near the stage and were evacuating the audience when the pipe bomb or bombs inside exploded.
Authorities said there may have been more than one pipe bomb in the backpack and described the weapon as an "anti-personnel fragmentation device" with nails and screws attached that were thrown as far as 100 yards.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Centennial Olympic Park
AT&T Global Olympic Village
- Surface serves as projections screens for nightly laser and video shows
- Video conferencing with Delta travel center
- Video game-equipped lounges
- Communications services include Internet access terminals, prepaid calling and language interpretation