Blasts Hurt 64 in English City; Police Blame IRA

At least 64 people were injured Thursday when two morning rush-hour explosions rocked Manchester, a northern England commercial metropolis.

Authorities said bomb squads disposed of several suspect packages, but no more explosives were found. The center of the city was sealed off for most of the day as officials tended the wounded and hunted for more bombs.

Police blamed the explosions on the Irish Republican Army, which, as part of its long-running campaign to force Britain out of Northern Ireland, has threatened to disrupt mainland cities during the Christmas season. They condemned the terrorists’ tactic of phoning two warnings--seven minutes after the first explosion--and giving misleading information about the location of other bombs.

Six people were taken to the hospital after the first blast, believed to be a car bomb, which damaged an office building. The second explosion occurred 90 minutes later, just after 10 a.m., near St. Ann’s Square near the Arndale shopping center. It injured dozens more. Reports of a third blast were later discounted by police.

Police evacuated a half-mile-square area and sealed off streets. Reports said that most of the injuries were superficial--cuts and abrasions--caused by flying glass.

The Rt. Rev. Colin Scott, acting bishop of Manchester, said office and shop workers, evacuated after the first blast, had taken shelter in the cathedral when the second device went off nearby.

“They were pretty shaken,” he said. “Having already experienced one explosion, they thought they were safe in the cathedral. I think it is a cruel and cynical attack on innocent civilians. I can see no way in which the problems of Northern Ireland can be solved by murdering and maiming civilians.”