Manchester - At least 22 people
were killed and 59 wounded in an explosion at the end of a
concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in the English city of
Manchester on Monday, in what two U.S. officials said was a
suspected suicide bombing.
Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being
treated as a terrorist attack. If confirmed, it would be the
deadliest militant assault in Britain since four British Muslims
killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport
system in July 2005.
Police responded to reports of an explosion shortly after
10:33 pm (2133 GMT) at Manchester Arena, which has the capacity
to hold 21,000 people, where the U.S. singer had been performing
to an audience that included many children.
A witness who attended the concert said she felt a huge
blast as she was leaving the arena, followed by screaming and a
rush by thousands of people trying to escape the building.
A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young,
screaming and running from the venue. Dozens of parents
frantically searched for their children, posting photos and
pleading for information on social media.
"We were making our way out and when we were right by the
door there was a massive explosion and everybody was screaming,"
concert-goer Catherine Macfarlane told Reuters.
"It was a huge explosion - you could feel it in your chest.
It was chaotic. Everybody was running and screaming and just
trying to get out."
Ariana Grande, 23, later said on Twitter: "broken. from the
bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don't have words."
May, who faces an election in two-and-a-half weeks, said her
thoughts were with the victims and their families. May and
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, agreed
to suspend campaigning ahead of the June 8 election.
"We are working to establish the full details of what is
being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack,"
May said in a statement. "All our thoughts are with the victims
and the families of those who have been affected."
May will hold a crisis response meeting on Tuesday.
Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said police were
treating the blast as a terrorist incident and were working with
counter-terrorism police and intelligence agencies but gave no
further details on their investigation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping sent his condolences over the
blast to Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Chinese state media
reported.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but U.S.
officials drew parallels to the coordinated attacks in November
2015 by Islamist militants on the Bataclan concert hall and
other sites in Paris, which claimed about 130 lives.
Two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said
initial signs indicated that a suicide bomber was responsible
for the blast.
"In the absence of conclusive evidence, the choice of venue,
the timing and the mode of attack all suggest this was
terrorism," said a U.S. counter terrorism official who also
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State supporters took to social media to celebrate
the blast and some encouraged similar attacks elsewhere.
Britain is on its second-highest alert level of "severe",
meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the
situation in Manchester closely but said it had no information
to indicate a specific credible threat involving music venues in
the United States.
British counter-terrorism police have said they are making
on average an arrest every day in connection with suspected
terrorism.
In March, a British-born convert to Islam ploughed a car
into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing four
people before stabbing to death a police officer who was on the
grounds of parliament. The man was shot dead at the scene.
In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a
U.S. court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale
shopping centre in the centre of Manchester in April 2009.
Manchester Arena, the largest indoor arena in Europe, opened
in 1995 and is a popular concert and sporting venue.
Desperate parents and friends used social media to search
for loved ones while the wounded were being treated at six
hospitals across Manchester.
"Everyone pls share this, my little sister Emma was at the
Ari concert tonight in #Manchester and she isn't answering her
phone, pls help me," said one message posted alongside a picture
of a blonde girl with flowers in her hair.
Paula Robinson, 48, from West Dalton about 40 miles east of
Manchester, said she was at the train station next to the arena
with her husband when she felt the explosion and saw dozens of
teenage girls screaming and running away from arena.
"We ran out," Robinson told Reuters. "It was literally
seconds after the explosion. I got the teens to run with me."
Robinson took dozens of teenage girls to the nearby Holiday
Inn Express hotel and tweeted out her phone number to worried
parents, telling them to meet her there. She said her phone had
not stopped ringing since her tweet.
"Parents were frantic running about trying to get to their
children," she said. "There were lots of lots children at
Holiday Inn."