A blast on Monday night at a concert in the northern English city of Manchester where US singer Ariana Grande had been performing left at least 19 people dead and 59 injured.
Though the Manchester Arena blast sent ripples globally, it is unfortunately not the first of its kind. Over the years, several shootings and explosions at places where large groups of people gathered for cultural activities or merry-making have been carried out.
1. Bataclan Attack, Paris (2015)
On 13 November 2015, Paris witnessed a series of blasts and shootings in several parts of the city, including the Bataclan Theater, where the rock band Eagles of Death Metal was playing.
The attack, which was later confirmed to had been carried out by the Islamic State, saw a black vehicle pulling up outside the concert hall around 10 pm local time. Three heavily armed gunmen came out and shot close to 90 people to death, while injuring several others. The terrorists were killed in under three hours.
2. Night Club Bomb Attack, Bali (2002)
At least 182 people were killed in an explosion at a nightclub in Bali in 2002. A car bomb exploded in what The Guardian called “the worst terrorist act in Indonesia's history.”
About 300 people were left injured, including several foreign nationals. Witness and police accounts later described two blasts, one at a discotheque called Paddy’s, another at the Sari Club, a venue frequented by tourists, that constituted the attack.
3. Orlando Night Club Shooting, USA (2016)
Fifty people were killed and around 53 injured when a gunman opened fire at Pulse – a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida – on 12 June 2016. Police later confirmed the death of the gunman and called it an act of “domestic terrorism.” The shooting started at 2 am EST, while there were around 300 people in the club.
Authorities said that’s when 29-year-old suspect Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the unsuspecting crowd with bullets. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly – 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. He shot at police and took hostages before he was killed in a shootout with local police.
4. Dolphinarium Discotheque Massacre, Israel (2001)
At least 17 people, many of them teenagers, were killed at a discotheque in Tel Aviv, Israel on 1 June 2001. The attack, that took place outside the Dolphinarium discotheque, injured at least 70 more, according to CNN. The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group, reported The Guardian.
5. Stavropol Bomb Blast, Russia (2010)
At least five people were killed outside a theatre in Stavropol in Russia on 26 May 2010 in a bomb blast. The explosion left about 20 people injured, reported Reuters. It took place about fifteen minutes before the starting of a Chechen dance show.
The attack was described as “unprecedented, brutal provocation” by Stavropol's governor, Valery Gayevsky.
6. Bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, USA (1996)
The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, also known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad or the Centennial Olympic Games, was hit by the explosion of a pipe bomb. It killed a mother and her daughter along with injuring over 100 people, reported The Guardian.
A couple of days of the explosion, a security guard at the concert was charged with the crime. However, he was let off in October of the same year due to lack of evidence.
(With inputs from The Guardian and CNN.)
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