Dunmurry bomb explosion
The bomb explosion Dunmurry occurred on 17 January 1980, when in a train , which at the railway Belfast-Derry was traveling in Dunmurry , Northern Ireland , a firebomb the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded (IRA) prematurely. Three people were killed and five others were injured.
Starting position
The Northern Ireland Railways train from Ballymena to Belfast passed through the suburbs of Belfast with the next scheduled stop at Finaghy . After the stop in Dunmurry, the train was only weakly manned, with only four passengers in the last car . Two of them were members of the IRA who carried two incendiary bombs with time fuses . These consisted of around two kilograms of explosives , a petrol can and the detonator . The plan was to leave the bombs hidden after the train arrived in Belfast. They shouldn't explode until the train was empty.
the accident
However, for unknown reasons, one of the bombs exploded prematurely at around 4:55 p.m. and ignited the last passenger car on the moving train. Three people died here. The corpses burned so badly that they could not be identified at first . An emergency brake was applied immediately , which enabled the other passengers to leave the train immediately. This filled with smoke and the fire continued to spread. It took several hours for the fire to be extinguished.
consequences
One of the bombers died, the other survived seriously injured. The IRA took responsibility in a statement, admitting that the bomb exploded prematurely. One of the other injured was a firefighter. The last two cars on the train were badly damaged, but were later rebuilt.
Similar bombs were used to attempt attacks on trains at Belfast-Greenisland and King's Cross stations in London. In both cases, the bombs were discovered, secured and detonated in a controlled manner in good time.
The MPs of the British House of Commons , Winston Spencer Churchill took the incident as an opportunity to reintroduce the death penalty to demand.
The surviving terrorist was charged with manslaughter and illegal possession of explosives in Belfast Crown Court and was sentenced to 37 years in prison - 10 years for each of the three killed and 7 years for illegal possession of explosives.
See also
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 33 ′ 40.5 ″ N , 5 ° 59 ′ 32.1 ″ W.