On 20 March 1972, the Provisional IRA detonated a car bomb in Lower Donegall Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland, when the street was crowded with shoppers, office workers, and many schoolchildren.
Seven people were killed in the explosion, including two members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), who said they had evacuated people to what was considered to have been a safe area following misleading telephone calls, which had originally placed the device in a nearby street. The Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade admitted responsibility for the bomb, which also injured 148 people, but claimed that the security forces had deliberately misrepresented the warnings in order to maximise the casualties. This was one of the first car bombs the IRA used in their armed campaign.
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