Warrington Bomb Attacks
|
|
The Warrington Bomb Attacks took place in Warrington, England in 1993. The first attack, on a gasworks, created a huge fireball but no casualties, but the second attack on Bridge Street killed two and injured many. The attacks were believed to have been conducted by the IRA.
At 11:58am on Mother's Day (20 March 1993), the British telephone help charity The Samaritans received a coded message that a bomb was going to be detonated outside the Boots The Chemists shop in Liverpool, fifteen miles away from Warrington. Merseyside police investigated, and also warned the Cheshire police (who patrolled Warrington) of the threat, but it was too late to evacuate. At 12:12pm two bombs exploded, one outside of Boots on Bridge Street and one outside the Argos catalogue store. It later turned out that bombs had been placed inside bins (trash receptacles).
Buses were organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics and crews from 17 ambulances were sent to deal with the aftermath.
Eyewitnesses of the time claim that "the first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later."
There were two fatalities from the blast: a 4 year-old boy named Johnathan Ball died at the scene whilst buying a Mother's Day card with a babysitter, and an older boy named Tim Parry who was sitting on the bin at the time took the full force of the blast. Five days later he died of his injuries.