page_title: Omagh bombing
section_title: Explosion and aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Omagh bombing / Attack / Explosion and aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Tyrone County Hospital. I was passing the day that it was announced that this hospital was about to be replaced with another facility - a blow to the local community, camera men and reporters pictured outside with a van equipped with a satellite dish to beam back the scene to the studio.
context_page_description: The Omagh bombing was a car bombing on 15 August 1998 in the town of Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was carried out by a group calling themselves the Real Irish Republican Army, a Provisional Irish Republican Army splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement. The bombing killed 29 people and injured some 220 others, making it the deadliest single incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Telephoned warnings had been sent almost 40 minutes beforehand but were inaccurate, and police had inadvertently moved people toward the bomb.
  The bombing caused outrage both locally and internationally, spurred on the Northern Ireland peace process and dealt a severe blow to the dissident Irish republican campaign. The Real IRA denied that the bomb was intended to kill civilians and apologised; shortly after, the group declared a ceasefire. The victims included people of many backgrounds and ages: Protestants, Catholics, six teenagers, six children, a woman pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists and others on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland. Both unionists and Irish nationalists were killed and injured.
context_section_description: The car bomb exploded at about 15:10 BST in the crowded shopping area. It tore the car into deadly shrapnel and created a fireball and shockwave. People were caught in "a storm" of glass, masonry and metal, as the blast destroyed shop fronts and blew the roofs off buildings. A thick cloud of dust and smoke filled the street. The blast was so strong that it tore up concrete and pipes burst. The water running down the street, turned red from the blood of wounded people. Within 25 minutes journalists were on the street taking pictures. Twenty-one people who had been standing near the bomb were killed outright. Eight more died on the way to or in hospital.
  Injured survivor Marion Radford described hearing an "unearthly bang", followed by "an eeriness, a darkness that had just come over the place", then screams as she saw "bits of bodies, limbs" on the ground while she searched for her 16-year-old son, Alan. She later discovered he had been killed yards away from her, after the two became separated minutes before the blast.
  The BBC News said that survivors described scenes of "utter carnage," with the dead and dying "strewn across the street and other victims screaming for help". The injured were initially taken to two local hospitals, the Tyrone County Hospital and the Erne Hospital. A local leisure centre was set up as a casualty field centre, and the British Army's Lisanelly Barracks served as a makeshift morgue. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet, rescue workers likened the scene to "battlefield conditions". Tyrone County Hospital became overwhelmed, and appealed for local doctors to come in to help.
  Because of the stretched emergency services, buses, cars and helicopters were used to take the victims to other hospitals in Northern Ireland, including the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry. A Tyrone County Hospital spokesman stated that they treated 108 casualties, 44 of whom had to be transferred to other hospitals. Paul McCormick of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said, "The injuries are horrific, from amputees, to severe head injuries to serious burns, and among them are women and children." The morning after the bombing, a man was killed when his car collided with an ambulance ferrying bomb victims to hospitals in Belfast.
  Omagh Leisure Centre was used as a base for relatives and friends of the victims. There they could receive news updates.
caption: Tyrone County Hospital, where many of the bomb victims were taken.
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