Good day ends badly with Manchester Arena Explosion

The day had started so positively with the opening of Cambridge North Station featuring at regular intervals on the radio and TV. Jane and I took the car over to Cowley road and parked near Taylor Vinters, then walked down to see the new station as we are hoping to travel from there in the future.

As I write, however, all other news has been swept away by live reports of an explosion  at the Manchester Arena, the largest arena in Europe with a capacity of 21,000. Apparently, a very large bang and shock wave was experienced by some present at around 10:35pm. There are reports of casualties and confirmed fatalities. Rail services have been suspended as the Victoria Station rail lines run nearby.

A picture is gradually emerging that the incident occurred near one of the entrance halls and one witness reported the smell of burning. After the explosion, one eye-witness account said that a few people called out that it was a bomb and panic ensued as people tried to get out of the building as soon as possible. It is not clear whether the fatalities were due to the explosion or due to the panic afterwards.

The concert was by Ariana Grande and the audience had a high proportion of children and young adults present at the concert.

By 12:45am the event was being considered as a potential but not confirmed terror incident, which occurred in the foyer area of the theatre and resulted in casualties that could run into double figures.

13:35am: 19 confirmed dead, around 50 injured. Manchester police just conducted a controlled explosion of a suspected device in Cathedral Gardens. Event now being treated as terrorist incident. Seems incident was timed for during the exit from the arena at an exit close to the station, where crowds often gathered. As transport away from Manchester difficult, hotels are putting up people and taxi drivers offering free rides.