Aoife Heaney ([email protected])
Sat, 15 Aug 1998 11:14:14 PDT
I just heard about this on the news, the death toll so far
is apparently 21.....christ...
>>News Update Sunday, August 16, 1998
Fatalities feared after
Omagh bomb attack
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Conor Pope
Saturday 4.30 p.m.
A bomb exploded outside the Court House in Omagh Co. Tyrone shortly
after 3.00 p.m. this afternoon and initial reports are indicating that
there has been a large number of casualties with unconfirmed eyewitness
and ambulance personnel reports suggesting that there may have been up
to 12 fatalities.
At approximately 2.30 p.m. a warning was received that a bomb had been
planted at the top end of the town's High Street but 40 minutes later,
as police were evacuating the area, the bomb went off several hundred
yards away at the junction of Market Street and Dublin Road, half a mile
from the town centre. Staff at the Tyrone County Hospital have been put
on emergency alert and an immediate appeal has been issued for doctors
and nurses to return.
The RUC have so far been unable to confirm whether or not anyone was
killed in the blast but said there were a large number of casualties. It
is believed that a carnival was taking place in the town at the time of
the attack. There was no confirmation of any fatalities. The British
Deputy Prime Minister Mr John Prescott condemned the attack, describing
it as an "terrible outrage". "You cannot help but feel utter contempt
for such a cowardly act which is really against the expressed democratic
will of the Northern Ireland people who want peace," he told Sky News.
"Peace is what we intend to bring about with the co-operation of the
ordinary people and we will carry on to achieve that objective."
No organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack but it is
believed that a republican splinter group may have been behind the
attack.
Last week political representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries
warned that the peace process could disintegrate if there were any
fatalities resulting from such attacks.
More news as it becomes available throughout this afternoon.
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