Deathly quiet of a city deep in shock

Manchester was in shock when I got here. The streets were quiet and people subdued. Police with lethallooking rifles were on the streets.

Near the site where Salman Abedi massacred 22 innocent victims, outside a cordon, I was the only person there besides the police.

The nervous tension was there, even at 6.30am as the city woke.

To get to the Manchester Arena I walked 30 minutes through the city and encountered only a handful of people. One, a man in his late 40s, asked me how to get into the cordoned area so he could go to work. Police cordons seemed to have taken over, severely restricting everyday life. Beside them stood tired-looking officers clutching cups of coffee.

Many had hoped that last night the cordons would be lifted, and that people could begin to try to find some

If one thing has been made clear in the past 48 hours, it is that this is a place and a people united, determined not to let terrorism win.

normality. But instead the terror threat was raised to the highest possible level — critical, which means another attack could be imminent.

It was scary news to wake up to and devastating that something like this, an attack against children, teenagers and adults doing something as innocent as attending a concert, could happen again.

Manchester will be forced to live on edge for who knows how long.

How can the people here go about their daily lives when something like this could happen again at any moment, anywhere in the city?

It is a frightening time but if one thing has been made clear in the past 48 hours, it is that this is a place and a people united, determined not to let terrorism win. All the flowers and messages of hope show that. As do the “I love Manchester” signs and the people offering one another support.

As the Bishop of Manchester, James Prince Lee, said at Tuesday’s vigil, “love, in the end, is always stronger than hate”.