19 people killed, 59 hurt in blast at U.K. concert

Police gather at Manchester Arena on Monday after an explosion rocked the venue during an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
Police gather at Manchester Arena on Monday after an explosion rocked the venue during an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.

MANCHESTER, England -- At least 19 people were killed and 59 were wounded after at least one explosion thundered through a Manchester concert arena Monday night as a performance by pop star Ariana Grande ended.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Map showing the location of Manchester Arena

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."

Greater Manchester Police said 19 people were confirmed dead after the explosion at Manchester Arena. Northwest Ambulance Service said 59 injured people had been taken to hospitals and that a number of "walking wounded" were treated at the scene.

There was no immediate word from the police on the precise cause of the blast, but two U.S. security officials told The Washington Post that initial evidence at the scene suggested the attack may have been a suicide bombing. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

British authorities, who were meeting in emergency sessions in Manchester and London, did not immediately confirm those reports.

The scene immediately evoked the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, which included a deadly assault inside the Bataclan concert hall where the Eagles of Death Metal had been playing.

Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the victims and their families in "what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack."

The British government planned an emergency Cabinet meeting for later this morning.

If confirmed as a terrorist attack, it would be the worst strike on British soil since 2005, when Islamist extremists bombed the London subway and a bus, killing 54 people.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said late Monday that there was "no information to indicate a specific credible threat involving music venues in the United States," but added that Americans may see "increased security in and around public places and events as officials take additional precautions."

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.

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 or 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.

"Ariana is OK," said her publicist, Joseph Carozza. "We are further investigating what happened."

Grande expressed her sorrow in a tweet hours after the explosion, saying she was "broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so sorry. i don't have words."

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. In addition, a number of Manchester taxi services said they were offering free rides to people trapped by the incident.

The incident also prompted May to cancel a campaign event today and Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron to cancel a campaign tour to Gibraltar. Britons are due to go to the polls June 8.

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.

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."

Information for this article was contributed by Rory Smith, Sewell Chan, ewell Chan, Matthew Haag, Caryn Ganz and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times; by Griff Witte and Peter Holley of The Washington Post; by Thomas Penny of Bloomberg News; and by Gregory Katz, Jill Lawless and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/23/2017

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