page_title: 1996 Docklands bombing
section_title: The bombing
hierarchical_section_title: 1996 Docklands bombing / The bombing
caption_attribution_description: English: DLR type B2K EMU #02 approaches South Quay with a service for Lewisham.
context_page_description: The London Docklands bombing occurred on 9 February 1996, when the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a powerful truck bomb in South Quay. The blast killed two people and devastated a wide area, causing an estimated £150 million worth of damage. The IRA had sent warnings 90 minutes beforehand, but the area was not fully evacuated. As well as the two people who were killed, more than 100 were injured, some permanently.
  The attack marked an end to the IRA's seventeen-month ceasefire, and came just over an hour after its declaration to Irish broadcaster RTÉ. The IRA agreed to the ceasefire in August 1994 on the understanding that Sinn Féin would be allowed to take part in peace negotiations, but resumed its campaign with the Docklands bombing when the British government demanded a full IRA disarmament as a precondition for talks. After the bombing, the British government dropped its demand. A few months later, the IRA detonated another, more powerful truck bomb in Manchester.
  IRA member James McArdle was convicted of the bombing in 1998. He had been a member of an IRA sniper team in South Armagh. He was released two years later, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
context_section_description: At about 5pm on Friday 9 February, the truck bomb was parked in the Docklands. The Docklands was a "high-prestige" target for the IRA. It was made up of many high-rise buildings housing the offices of major banks, corporations, newspapers and television stations. It included the Canary Wharf Tower, then the tallest building in Europe. The truck was parked about 80 yards (70 m) from South Quay station on the Docklands Light Railway, under the point where the tracks cross Marsh Wall.  At about 5:30pm, an IRA spokesman issued a statement to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, announcing that the IRA, "with great reluctance", would be ending its ceasefire at 6pm. However, RTÉ were sceptical and did not report the announcement on the 6 p.m. news; it would do so only minutes before the bomb detonated. Shortly after 5:30 p.m., the IRA began sending a string of at least six telephoned warnings about the bomb. They were accompanied by a secret IRA codeword, known only to the IRA and security forces, so that police would know the warning was genuine. In one of the calls, to the offices of the Irish News, the caller said "there's a massive bomb beside South Quay station, Marsh Wall, Isle of Dogs, London. Evacuate immediately".
  Police officers arrived at the scene and, at about 6pm, they began evacuating the area around South Quay station. The officers (of whom there were at least twenty) were told to cordon off the area, clear it of vehicles and pedestrians, and to keep staff inside the office blocks. However, there was confusion over where the bomb was. Some buildings near the bomb were evacuated, but staff were then ordered back inside by police. Some people believed the warning to be a hoax. At 6:48pm the officers found the blue truck at South Quay Plaza, parked between two office blocks. An officer ran to a nearby newsagents shop and told the two workers inside to leave immediately. However, the men stayed to close the shop first.
  The bomb detonated at 7:01pm, devastating the surrounding office blocks and showering the area with broken glass. The blast was heard and felt across London, and shook the Canary Wharf Tower. Part of the South Quay Plaza was destroyed and the explosion left a crater 32 ft (10 m) wide and 10 ft (3 m) deep. John Grieve, head of the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist unit, described "a scene of utter devastation [...] like a scene from the apocalypse". The two men in the newsagents—shop owner Inam Bashir (29), and employee John Jeffries (31)—were killed outright. They were blown through two walls and their bodies buried by rubble. More than 100 people were hurt, mainly by broken glass, 39 of whom needed hospital treatment. Most of the injured were staff in nearby office blocks. Members of a British Moroccan family were sitting in their car near the newsagents; the car was wrecked by the blast and the father received severe head injuries. He spent two weeks in a coma and suffered permanent brain damage, which left him disabled. A woman was blinded in one eye by shards of glass and needed 300 stitches on her face and arms. A second explosion caused by a gas leak hampered rescue efforts.
  The blast caused an estimated £150 million worth of damage and cost insurers £170 million. Three nearby buildings (the Midland Bank building, South Quay Plaza I and II) were destroyed; the former had to be demolished and the latter two had to be rebuilt. The station itself was extensively damaged, but both it and the bridge near the bomb were reopened within weeks (through services resumed on 15 April and the station reopened on 22 April), the latter needing only cosmetic repairs despite its proximity to the blast.
caption: The site of the bombing in 2013
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