Police
It took just 20 police officers to evacuate 80,000 people in an hour-long lifesaving operation.
They co-opted security guards, firefighters, ambulance personnel and “anyone else in a uniform” to help them create a 400-metre cordon around the bomb-loaded van.
Officers charged through shops, offices and public spaces asking people to clear the area, as the force helicopter used its PA system above.
Assistant Chief Constable Ian Seabridge was one of a small group of senior police who masterminded the whirlwind operation that prevented even one life being lost.
Mr Seabridge, then a chief inspector, believes they deserved the luck they had that day.
The Euro 96 soccer tournament had been running for a week and after the breakdown of the peace process in February that year, the father-of-two says they were in no doubt the city could be an IRA target.
“We knew the threat was there and we had done a lot of work to be prepared,” he said.
As a result, officers had been trained in every bomb issue, from the powers they had for evacuations to the finer details of the emergency plans.
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“We only had about 20 officers on hand for the initial evacuation procedure but fortunately they were all based at Bootle Street so they knew the ground. Also because of Euro 96 we had key people in the Operational Policing Unit who wouldn’t have normally been in at that time.”
MORE Follow the events of the day as they unfolded, on our 'live blog' of June 15, 1996
He said although they didn’t know what size the blast would be, they managed to clear the area for 400 metres in nearly three quarters of a full circle around the van.
“A major breakthrough was the fact that the Marks and Spencer staff moved so quickly and with absolutely no question. That did create momentum and the public were brilliant,” he said.
“There were stories of people making trouble but very few. When the Army bomb squad arrived, they set up outside near Back Pool Fold and prepared to disrupt the link between the bomb and its detonator.
Mr Seabridge’s memory of the explosion itself is crystal clear. The bomb disposal team received the all-clear from the police manning the cordon and the policeman with them warned emergency teams to expect two explosions. They said the first one – to expose the detonator – would be quiet and the second – to destroy the detonator link with the huge fertilizer payload – would be louder.
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Mr Seabridge, who was standing near the junction of King Street and Cross Street, says he heard the first explosion and then a “massive, massive bang” as the bomb exploded before the link could be broken.
“It was so loud and followed immediately by absolute silence,” he said.
“Then the silence was totally shattered by this huge wall of noise, the sounds of massive chunks of debris coming down, including the van, and radios barking into life and thousands of alarms going off.”
Mr Seabridge said when his initial confusion subsided, he glanced around the building and along Cross Street to check his colleagues and the bomb squad were alright.
“It was then about quickly setting up triage points and getting the seriously wounded off to hospitals,” he said.
“It was a long, hard day but from the moment the bomb went off, the whole focus and drive was about moving forward.”
When Pc Wendy McCormick and her colleague stepped up to a white van on Corporation Street they had no inkling of the danger they faced. It was just before 10am on Saturday, June 15, 1996 and 34-year-old Wendy and Pc Gary Hartley were responding to a bomb warning.
Having patrolled the city centre for nearly all of her 11 years of service, Wendy had experienced countless bomb scares.
“We knew there was a bomb warning but there were warnings all the time and we just thought it would be another false alarm,” she said. I was going through bins in front of Marks and Spencer and then we turned our attention to the van when somebody said there were wires hanging out of it.
"We saw it had a parking ticket on it and Gary even got underneath it to try and get chassis numbers – I can hardly believe it now but we were thinking of getting it towed away.”
Just minutes later Special Branch authenticated the bomb warning, the decision was made to evacuate and Wendy said the mood changed dramatically.
“None of us was trained to do what we did, but we worked as a team and we got it done,” she said.
Wendy helped evacuate Marks and Spencer and the nearby Pizza Hut.
“Marks and Spencer was very easy because the staff were so professional and they used the tannoy. But in other places people didn’t want to move at all.”
When the bomb went off Wendy, who now co-ordinates anti-social behaviour orders for GMP in Trafford, was next to the former Ramada Hotel – now the Renaissance.
“The noise was incredible and then the silence straight afterwards was eerie,” she said.
After dealing with the immediate aftermath, Wendy managed to borrow the Ramada phone to call her mum and dad who were sunbathing in the garden in Flixton. “I said: ‘The bomb’s gone off, but I’m OK’. My dad just said: ‘What bomb?’”
Fire service
IRA bombers had already devastated fire chief Dave Morris’s family before they targeted Manchester.
Twelve years earlier, they had blown up four off-duty soldiers who had gone fishing in Enniskillen. Two of those Lancashire Fusiliers were killed outright and the other two horrifically injured after their van was booby-trapped.
One was Dave’s brother-in-law, Lance Corporal Peter Gallimore, who lost a leg, and suffered serious burns. Peter and Dave had been schoolmates at Harper Green Secondary Modern in Farnworth, Bolton, and best man at each other’s weddings.
Watch: Previously unseen video footage of the aftermath of the bomb from firefighters
After numerous operations, Peter died several months later as a direct result of his injuries.
So when Dave found himself in charge of the evacuation of Manchester on June 15, the grim memories came flooding back.
“The last time I saw Peter he was in a military hospital in Woolwich, London. I will never forget him. We had been friends for a long time and it was through him I met my wife. I am sad about what the IRA did to Peter and others. But I am not bitter. It is more important for me to be supportive of my family and his family.”
Dave tried to push the tragedy of Peter to the back of his mind on the day of the Manchester bomb. Then an Assistant Divisional Officer, based at Salford, he was in charge of the brigade’s initial response. He led the evacuation and the rescues of those left inside buildings.
His own courage was mirrored by firefighters who, wearing heavy breathing apparatus, sprinted up shattered stairways finding the injured, despite the risk. Dave was initially the only trauma technician at the scene in the early stages. He treated at least nine casualties, reducing blood loss and shock.
Dave, now a divisional officer based at the brigade’s training centre in Manchester, said: “I was the nearest officer of an appropriate rank. We sent three fire engines and an aerial appliance. It was a bright sunny day, and typically busy in Manchester. I positioned myself in Cateaton Street, near the Corn Exchange.
“Police officers were trying to shut some of the roads to stop people coming in. The number of people in the city was a lot greater than usual because of the football and the fact it was the Saturday before Father’s Day.
“My thoughts were that we would make the area safe, the bomb disposal team would get involved, and everything would go back to normal. Our role was to standby in case anything happened, but there were a lot of people at risk.
“I felt it was appropriate to let my officers get involved in the evacuation, and we concentrated on the Corn Exchange – people were still trying to get in to pick things up. Other fire engines were drawn into the area by alarms being set off in buildings to get people out.”
Dave recalled: “It was a big lingering explosion. I drove back to the area near the Corn Exchange. People were coming down the street with blood splattered on T-shirts, and there was glass all over the roads.
"I looked in disbelief at part of the city centre, which had become rubble. Our crews were unaware that not all the buildings had been evacuated. About 40 staff were inside Longridge House.”
Firefighters went into the building and up to the second floor where they heard cries for help. They led 15 injured people, suffering from shock, cuts, and blast injuries, to safety. On the third floor they found a woman on her knees in the debris with horrific injuries to her face.
She was carried from the building by fireman Alan Cox, who took her to an engine where Dave gave her treatment before moving her to a casualty area he had set up on Deansgate. The woman was Barbara Welch, who needed more than 250 stitches to her face and seven hours of surgery.
A fireman for 30 years, Dave admitted he cried for Mrs Welch after tending her injuries.
But the training he had learned as a teenager kicked in and he remained professional and composed. She wasn’t the only one the firemen helped.
Next to be discovered was John Hogan, found by firemen Martin Sykes and Ian Ainsworth. He was semi-conscious and had severe head and jaw injuries. He was given first aid at the scene by other officers and carried outside. A woman, whose name was not known, was found with a severe head wound and chest injuries.
Martin Sykes opened her airway and helped her to regain consciousness. Other firemen carried her to the staircase where she was given treatment before two police officers carried her from the building. Before reaching Longridge House fireman Andrew Lasckey went into the Corn Exchange and helped Barry Ryan who had been seen at a window. He had suffered severe cuts and controlling his blood loss was vital.
Crews also noticed a hand waving from the third floor of the Arndale Centre. An aerial platform was used to rescue the casualty, a security guard. Dave, a 49-year-old father of two, said: “I got an immense amount of pride from the way the fire service worked on that day. They had no thought for their own safety. Searching for casualties was the only thing on their mind.
“When we dealt with Longridge House I expected to find fatalities. Having seen the damage that was caused I was amazed that no one was killed.”
Ambulance service
As the first paramedic at the scene of the blast, Les Birkhead faced every medic’s worst nightmare.
Against all his instincts he had to ignore the cries of help from dozens of injured people lying in the rubble and glass.
It was his job to investigate the area and relay information back to control so they could direct ambulances to where they were most needed.
Les, now 50, will never forget having to stop his colleague Norman Thurrell from getting out to help people who saw the ambulance and couldn’t understand why they weren’t stopping. They were in one of the first three ambulances to leave Central Ambulance Station, in Plymouth Grove, after hearing the blast and as they drove the short distance to Fountain Street they could see the smoke rise above the city centre.
He said: “I’ll never forget how wrong it felt not to help those people. As we drove through the devastation it was eerie. The only sound were fire alarms all over the city centre and people were frightened, they looked to us for help. But it was crucial that I assessed the scene for control so they would know where to send the other crews. They needed as much information as possible.
“We had no idea what to expect as we drove towards Fountain Street. We saw people lying on the street in the glass and wreckage or wandering around dazed, unable to believe what was happening. Norman was a very experienced paramedic and he found it really tough not helping people. He started to give them bandages and other supplies and told them more crews would be there soon.”
Even as Les, from Poynton, tried to assess the scene, emergency service switchboards were flooded with calls. There were reports of casualties across the city. Les started the major incident plan, set up a control point and worked with control staff to make sure ambulances reached the people who most needed them.
There were 81 vehicles from across Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and Yorkshire ferrying scores of injured across the city, mainly to Manchester Royal Infirmary and North Manchester General.
Watch: CCTV footage shows the dramatic build-up and the aftermath of the 1996 bomb
He said: “The adrenaline kicked in very quickly and we just kept going, we went into overdrive. We knew we were in danger but we also knew people needed us to get the job done, and that takes priority. Looking back it’s hard to believe there weren’t more people seriously injured. We were preparing ourselves for the worst. It was very tough for staff who didn’t know whether their families had been caught up in the blast.”
Paramedic Clive Heather will never forget his frantic search through the city’s cellars to find people injured by the bomb.
Clive, now control manager at the ambulance service’s city centre station, worked with firefighters searching for victims of the blast trapped or injured inside the abandoned shops and offices.
He responded to reports of bodies in the street outside Marks and Spencer only to find dozens of shop mannequins had been flung out of the shop by the force of the blast. Clive was a member of the search team sent to check out reports of shoppers trapped in the Arndale.
He said: “It was like nothing else I’ve experienced. We were expecting the worst because some of the reports we had were very upsetting. We managed to clear the city centre very quickly because most people were not seriously injured, then we started the search for people who weren’t able to call for help.
“The bomb had started a lot of the shops’ sprinkler systems and water was trickling down the floors so that we were wading knee deep in the cellars. The city was like a ghost town with only the noise of car and burglar alarms, everywhere was abandoned.”
Clive, 48, from Congleton, and his colleagues spent hours checking shops and businesses.
He said: “We kept searching all day and one of the local pizza restaurants brought us some food. Some people were fantastic doing anything they could to help. It was great to feel that support, but I also felt sheer anger at what had happened.
"There had been so much effort to get the city ready for the Euro 96 matches and someone had destroyed all that. I just couldn’t understand how anyone could have targeted all the women and children who were inevitably in town buying Fathers’ Day presents.”
Clive, who has worked for the ambulance service for 33 years, helped unveil a plaque honouring the emergency services’ efforts after the bomb at a special service at Manchester Cathedral.