Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
19 people killed, 50 hurt in blast at U.K. concert
MANCHESTER, England — At least 19 people were killed and 50 were wounded after at least one explosion thundered through a Manchester concert arena Monday night as a performance by pop star Ariana Grande ended.
The explosion sent panicked spectators, including children, screaming and fleeing in what the Manchester police said on Twitter was being investigated as a “terrorist incident until the police know otherwise.”
“So far 19 have been confirmed dead, with around 50 injured,” the police agency added on its website.
There was no immediate word from police on the precise cause of the blast, but it immediately evoked the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, which included a deadly assault in a concert arena where the Eagles of Death Metal had been playing.
At least one explosion happened in the foyer of the
arena, not the main event hall, according to the British Transport Police, the force that protects the Victoria Station, the train terminus next to the arena. The terminal was evacuated.
Early this morning, Sky News reported that a bomb-disposal team had arrived at the arena as part of a police investigation and that the security cordon around the arena had been widened. There was no confirmation as to whether a bomb or bombs had gone off.
An area hospital, Wythenshawe, said it was dealing with “mass casualties.”
Heavily armed police and emergency services swarmed the arena, with ambulances rushing to the scene. And the local emergency-response service advised the public to call only “for life-threatening emergencies.”
Cellphone video showed chaotic scenes of people screaming and running after the blast. The arena was packed both with attendees and pink balloons that had fallen from the ceiling during the concert’s final song. Initially, concertgoers said they thought popping balloons had set off a panic.
But witnesses later reported seeing the prone bodies of those who had been injured and killed, as well as others who were streaked with blood and were staggering away from the scene.
People at the concert at the Manchester Arena said they heard what sounded like explosions at the end of the show, about 10:30 p.m. local time.
One concertgoer, Sasina Akhtar, told The Manchester Evening News that there had been an explosion at the back of the arena after the last song.
“We saw young girls with blood on them. Everyone was screaming, and people were running,” she said.
Grande, a 23-year-old singer who started her career as a star on a Nickelodeon TV series, is on an international tour supporting her 2016 album, Dangerous Woman.
The tour was scheduled to continue Thursday at the O2 Arena in London. Two additional acts, Victoria Monet and Bia, performed as openers.
“Ariana is OK,” said her publicist, Joseph Carozza. “We are further investigating what happened.”
Parents who had been separated from their children during the mayhem were told to go to a Holiday Inn, where many of them had taken refuge. Residents offered stranded concertgoers places to stay in their homes.
Gary Walker, who was at the show with his wife and two daughters, said he “heard a massive bang and saw a flash” just as the concert finished. He turned and realized that his wife had been hurt. Walker, who is from the northern city of Leeds, said his wife had a stomach wound and possibly a broken leg. He said he lay down with her and saw “metal nuts on the floor.”
His wife was taken to a hospital, and Walker was standing with his daughters at Deansgate, the main shopping street in Manchester.
The confusion and fear in the hours afterward were reflected on social media. One Twitter post asked: “Did anybody see my girlfriend? I lost her in the chaos.”
The BBC interviewed one witness, who was waiting outside the Manchester Arena to pick up his wife and daughter, recounting that the “whole building shook,” that there was “carnage everywhere,” and that the explosion appeared to come near the stadium’s ticket area. But the BBC emphasized that it was not clear what caused the explosion.
Videos posted on Twitter showed concertgoers running screaming from their seats.
“The concert had finished and we were all leaving and there was an explosion to our left and people started running,” actress Isabel Hodgins, who was at the show, told Sky News. “It smelled of burning, and there was quite a lot of smoke as we were leaving.”
The Manchester Arena, opened in 1995, can hold up to 21,000 spectators, but it was not clear how many people were in the crowd for the concert.
Karen Ford, a witness, told the BBC that “everyone was just getting out of their seats and walking toward the stairs when all of a sudden a huge sound, which sounded like an explosion, went off.”
“Everyone tried to push people up the stairs,” she recalled, adding that in the chaos, people tried to push past a woman in a wheelchair as children screamed.
She said she didn’t see any smoke and just heard one very loud bang.
“It was very, very loud,” she said, adding that her husband thought he had heard a second explosion. “There were shoes on the floor,” left behind by people who had fled, she recalled.
“Just chaos,” she said. “I was trying to tell people to calm down.” She added that the crush of people trying to flee created a perilous situation: “We were being crushed.”
Outside, Ford said, parents awaited their children who were attending the concert, checking their smartphones in a panic. “Everyone was trying to find each other.”