Explosion Of Terror Clinton Vows To Bring ‘Evil Cowards’ To Justice
The day opened with the thunder of a massive car bombing at a federal building and the horror of a death toll that could run into the hundreds. It closed with a somber presidential pledge of “swift, certain and severe justice” for the “evil cowards” who set the explosion.
In between, parents mourned their murdered children. Loved ones sat in stunned silence, suffering losses they barely were able to comprehend. The shock waves quickly spread across a nation riveted by an act of unprecedented terrorism slashed deep into its sense of heartland security.
At day’s end Wednesday, authorities confirmed at least 31 people had been killed in the car bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the worst U.S. bomb attack measured by death toll in 75 years. At least a dozen children from a day-care center on the building’s second floor were among the dead, some of whom had just been dropped off by their parents.
At least 200 people were injured - 58 critically, according to Fire Chief Gary Marrs - and scores were feared trapped in the rubble more than nine hours after the bombing.
Three people were pulled from the rubble Wednesday night but two died a short time later, said Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen. He said a 15-year-old girl was taken from the building in critical condition. He also said a woman trapped in the basement said there were two others with her. She didn’t know if they were dead or alive.
The death toll was certain to rise.
Officials said 300 workers and visitors who were in the building at the start of the business day were unaccounted for, many of them undoubtedly lost under the wreckage.
Rescue workers said some of them were still alive but trapped in the rubble caused when parts of all nine floors of the building collapsed from the force of the explosion. Much of the structure “pancaked,” with floor collapsing upon floor from top to bottom.
The explosion was a reminder that the terrorism, which has become part of life in Ulster and Jerusalem and a collection of other Middle Eastern and European datelines most commonly noted for long-running tragedy, can visit the United States, too.
The blast was so powerful that it rocked the ground 40 miles away.
It sent shrapnel-like shards of glass, steel and concrete rocketing for four blocks around the federal building and blasted windows out of structures hundreds of yards from the site of the explosion, which was marked by an 8-foot-deep crater in an adjacent parking lot.
“Sometimes there are no words for what you see. You don’t know why. I just want to go home and hug my kid,” said Gary Jenkins, an emergency medical worker who spent 10 hours at the scene of the bombing.
There were spots of blood everywhere, along with briefcases, coffee cups, tissue paper, pieces of clothing, shoes. Burning cars sent clouds of black smoke into the air all day. A makeshift morgue was set up in a nearby building; a huge refrigerator truck awaited the dead.
“I was in there 45 minutes after the explosion. There were lots of bodies. They were doing amputations in there, trying to free people,” said Sammy Martin, the fire chief from nearby Harrah.
“You looked up and you saw seven open floors above you in the sky. It’s the worst thing you can imagine. Nobody’s safe. This is a reality check. This isn’t supposed to happen in Oklahoma City.”
Jon Hansen, the assistant fire chief in Oklahoma City, wasn’t ready to give up.
“There are areas where we believe people are still alive. Kids can survive where other people can’t, so we’re hoping. We’re searching every floor, but there are areas we just can’t get into,” Hansen said. He estimated there were “hundreds” of bodies.
The city was desperate to set an accurate casualty count. But because so many people fled the building after the blast, and the destruction of one face of the structure was so complete, it was impossible to say who had fallen victim and who had escaped. Special phone numbers were set up in an attempt to find survivors.
More than 500 people work at the building in an array of federal offices.
Waves of FBI officials, sent to the scene from around the country by an angry, somber President Clinton, reported they had hundreds of leads to follow. But they had nothing to say publicly about how the bomb was constructed, who had set it off and why bureaucrats in the archetypal middle-American city were the target.
The FBI sent three emergency response teams; the Treasury Department sent two 20-agent explosives and arson teams; and the Air Force sent a 66-member rescue squad, along with two ambulances. The U.S. Marshal’s Service, also responsible for federal building safety, sent its investigators.
In the absence of a claim of responsibility for the blast, the day was full of speculation.
Because it happened on the second anniversary of the fiery federal attack on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., a connection was assumed. But it was denied by surviving Davidians.
As the day wore on, vague connections to Middle East tensions, retribution for American interventions, lingering Persian Gulf War bitterness all were added to the list. The Nation of Islam was quick to deny unverified rumors that it was involved and to state that its members were praying for the victims.
Investigators were tight-lipped, although at day’s end they were speculating that the device might have been made from a combination of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer and fuel oil - a common but devastating chemical mixture favored by Islamic terrorists with ties to Iran, according to Cable News Network reports.
Whatever it was, it was huge. Early in the day, the FBI announced a car bomb was the cause of the blast and estimated it had contained between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds of explosive.
White House officials moved quickly to reassure a public overwhelmed by vivid video coverage of the event. Federal authorities also ordered security alerts at federal buildings around the nation. There were a number of evacuations in the wake of phone threats, but no explosive devices were found.
For the first time that anyone could remember, guards at the Smithsonian Institution strapped on pistols. All day long, local officials decried the violence and pledged active and aggressive investigations.
“Obviously, no amateur did this,” said Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. “Whoever did this was an animal.”
But the strongest statements came from the White House.
“Let there be no reason for doubt,” said Clinton, “we will find the people who did this. … Justice will be swift, certain and severe.” He said he was sending the world’s best investigators to pursue the case.
Attorney General Janet Reno, an opponent of capital punishment, made clear the Justice Department’s position on the case.
“The death penalty is available,” said Reno, “and we will seek it.”
As with many other federal buildings, the Murrah building had its own day-care center, which usually serves about 40 children.
Twelve of those children were among the victims. Firefighters and police officers wept as they carried their bodies from the rubble, some of them too distraught to look at the faces of the babies. Twenty more children are unaccounted for.
The streets were full of bleeding victims, wandering in shock while rescue teams rushed in to help them. “It was like Beirut; everything was burning and flattened,” said Dr. Carl Spengler, who was one of the first doctors on the scene.
A rescue worker who had just left the shattered building said, “It’s just body after body after body in there.”
xxxx 1920 bombing A bomb attack on Wall Street on Sept. 16, 1920, killed 40 and injured hundreds, the biggest terrorist incident in this century until now. Authorities claimed it was the work of “anarchists” and came up with a list of suspects, but they all fled to Russia.