1996 Manchester bombing
1996 CE.
Shown on the map at 53.484°, -2.243°.
On 15 June 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a 1,500-kilogram (3,300 lb) lorry bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England. It was the biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since the Second World War. It targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused significant damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million (equivalent to £1.3 billion in 2024), a sum surpassed only by the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, also by the IRA. At the time, England was hosting the Euro '96 football championship and a Russia vs. Germany match was scheduled to take place in Manchester the following day. The IRA sent telephoned warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb detonated. At least 75,000 people were evacuated from the region, but the bomb squad was unable to defuse the bomb in time. More than 200 people were injured, but there were no fatalities despite the strength of the bomb, which has been largely credited to the rapid response of emergency services in evacuating the city centre. Although Manchester had been targeted by the IRA before, it had not been subjected to an attack on this scale.
Text from the Wikipedia article 1996 Manchester bombing, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.