Seventy Six Bethnal Green Road
Seventy Six Bethnal Green Road London E2
Lat = 51 degrees, 31.6 minutes North
Long = 0 degrees, 4.0 minutes West
And
Safe House Three
7 Greenland Road Camden town London NW1
Lat = 51 degrees, 32.4 minutes North
Long = 0 degrees, 8.4 minutes West
Tuesday 5th July 1988
The four hundred pounds bomb had been found in the kitchen of the property, the house had been carefully searched for any booby traps before the bomb disposal team could tackle the device.
It then took the disposal team thirty minutes to make it safe with twelve minutes to spare before detonation.
The senior police officer on the scene was now relaying the information to Commissioner Dawson.
“So Inspector; any idea of the devastation a device of this size would cause?”
“The bomb disposal has advised me that the device had been placed right next to the gas mains system in the house and estimates a blast radius of three to four hundred feet, sir.”
“Any news on the search for the other device Inspector?”
“Nothing sir.”
“How much time do we have?”
The inspector looked at his watch, “less than five minutes sir.”
“I have implemented the forces major incident plan, all we can do now; is to wait and pray, God help us inspector.”
Three miles to the east, Greenland road looked like any other street in the area of Camden; people were going about their daily business when the earth shook violently as the bomb in number seven Greenland road detonated.
As he building exploded from the blast, it caused the vaporisation of surrounding materials resulting in its rapid expansion forming the shockwave blast that exceeded four hundred miles per hour carrying within it, debris and flames.
The surrounding buildings at a radius of four hundred feet were completely destroyed by the blast; this took in part of the A 503 Camden road to the north, Camden street to the east, Carol street to the south and Bayham street to the west.
As the speed of this process was very fast; pedestrians in the surrounding streets saw the explosion and then heard the boom; the intense pressure in the air made it feel like an earthquake had hit them.
Flames rose twenty feet high from the ruptured gas supplies; water was spurting from the destroyed underground utilities pipes, within a minute a rising plume of smoke had appeared above the detonation zone.
The people in the immediate area did not stand a chance.
The blast was felt up to eight miles away.
When everything had settled there was a crater over nine feet deep where number seven Greenland road had been, the surrounding area looked like a demolition site, a few survivors with cloths ripped from them staggered around blindly, the growing screams of terror gradually growing louder.