Prime
Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a terrorist attack.
If confirmed, it would be the deadliest militant assault in Britain since four
British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport
system in July 2005.
Police
responded to reports of an explosion shortly after 10:33 pm (2133 GMT) at
Manchester Arena, which has the capacity to hold 21,000 people, where the U.S.
singer had been performing to an audience that included many children.
A witness
who attended the concert said she felt a huge blast as she was leaving the
arena, followed by screaming and a rush by thousands of people trying to escape
the building.
A video
posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, screaming and running from
the venue. Dozens of parents frantically searched for their children, posting
photos and pleading for information on social media.
"We
were making our way out and when we were right by the door there was a massive
explosion and everybody was screaming," concert-goer Catherine Macfarlane
told Reuters.
"It was
a huge explosion - you could feel it in your chest. It was chaotic. Everybody
was running and screaming and just trying to get out."
Ariana
Grande, 23, later said on Twitter: "broken. from the bottom of my heart, i
am so so sorry. i don't have words." May, who faces an election in
two-and-a-half weeks, said her thoughts were with the victims and their
families. May and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party,
agreed to suspend campaigning ahead of the June 8 election.
"We are
working to establish the full details of what is being treated by the police as
an appalling terrorist attack," May said in a statement. "All our
thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected."
May will
hold a crisis response meeting on Tuesday.
Manchester
Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said police were treating the blast as a terrorist
incident and were working with counter-terrorism police and intelligence
agencies but gave no further details on their investigation.
Chinese
President Xi Jinping sent his condolences over the blast to Britain's Queen
Elizabeth, Chinese state media reported.
SUICIDE
BOMBER?
There was no
immediate claim of responsibility, but U.S. officials drew parallels to the
coordinated attacks in November 2015 by Islamist militants on the Bataclan
concert hall and other sites in Paris, which claimed about 130 lives.
Two U.S.
officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said initial signs indicated that
a suicide bomber was responsible for the blast.
"In the
absence of conclusive evidence, the choice of venue, the timing and the mode of
attack all suggest this was terrorism," said a U.S. counter terrorism
official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
Islamic
State supporters took to social media to celebrate the blast and some
encouraged similar attacks elsewhere.
Britain is
on its second-highest alert level of "severe", meaning an attack by
militants is considered highly likely.
The U.S.
Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the situation in Manchester
closely but said it had no information to indicate a specific credible threat
involving music venues in the United States.
British
counter-terrorism police have said they are making on average an arrest every
day in connection with suspected terrorism.
In March, a
British-born convert to Islam ploughed a car into pedestrians on London's
Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing to death a police
officer who was on the grounds of parliament. The man was shot dead at the
scene.
In 2015,
Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with
al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping center in the center of Manchester in
April 2009.
PARENTS'
ANGUISH
Manchester
Arena, the largest indoor arena in Europe, opened in 1995 and is a popular
concert and sporting venue.
Desperate
parents and friends used social media to search for loved ones while the
wounded were being treated at six hospitals across Manchester.
"Everyone
pls share this, my little sister Emma was at the Ari concert tonight in
#Manchester and she isn't answering her phone, pls help me," said one
message posted alongside a picture of a blonde girl with flowers in her hair.
Paula
Robinson, 48, from West Dalton about 40 miles east of Manchester, said she was
at the train station next to the arena with her husband when she felt the
explosion and saw dozens of teenage girls screaming and running away from
arena.
"We ran
out," Robinson told Reuters. "It was literally seconds after the
explosion. I got the teens to run with me."
Robinson
took dozens of teenage girls to the nearby Holiday Inn Express hotel and
tweeted out her phone number to worried parents, telling them to meet her
there. She said her phone had not stopped ringing since her tweet.
"Parents
were frantic running about trying to get to their children," she said.
"There were lots of lots children at Holiday Inn."
For a
graphic showing where the blast hit, click: tmsnrt.rs/2rbQAay
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