On this day in 1996, a massive bomb devastated a busy shopping area in central Manchester. The bomb exploded at about 11.20 BST on Corporation Street outside the Arndale shopping centre. Two hundred people were injured in the attack, mostly by flying glass, and seven were said to be in a serious condition. Police believe the IRA planted the device. A telephone warning was sent to a local television station at 10.00 BST - just as the city centre was filling up with Saturday shoppers. The caller used a recognised IRA codeword.
One hour and twenty minutes after, police were still clearing hundreds of people from a huge area of central Manchester. Army bomb disposal experts were using a remote-controlled device to examine a suspect van parked outside Marks & Spencer when it blew up in an uncontrolled explosion. Many of those injured were outside the police cordon. Seventy bystanders were ferried to three hospitals in ambulances. Others walked or were taken by friends.
Prime Minister John Major insisted the multi-party Northern Ireland peace talks that had begun a week earlier would continue, but called on Sinn Fein - the political wing of the IRA - to condemn the attack and demand a ceasefire.
Click on the following link to watch events as they happened, and see the police evacuating the immediate area.
