Car Bomb Shreds Federal Building in Oklahoma City; 26 Dead, 300 Missing : Terrorism: Attack in America’s heartland claims the lives of 17 children who were at a day-care center. Clinton, fighting tears, calls bombers ‘evil cowards.’

A thundering, half-ton car bomb blew away nearly half of a nine-story federal building Wednesday in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 26 people, including 17 children, leaving 300 people missing and stabbing an icy fear of terror into the American heartland.

Authorities said they were certain that the death toll would climb. For hours, many of the dead were impossible to reach in the tangled wreckage. One rescuer said: “Children’s bodies were mangled and decapitated. There was lots of blood and debris.” Another said that “school papers and toys were strewn on the floor.”

The blast sent a red-orange fireball into the blue prairie sky and rocked the flatlands for 30 miles around. It threw a dirty black cloud of smoke and debris high into the air and hurled shards of glass in every direction around a ragged five-block circle. Cars in the streets nearby burst into flames and exploded. Men and women screamed and ran for their lives.

Rescuers, their faces ashen, brought most of the injured--including children as young as 18 months old--who were bloody and battered to St. Anthony Hospital, which reported treating more than 200 people for cuts, burns and shattered bones. A nurse, bloodstained and crying, said: “I was shocked to think that someone could do that to small children.”

The FBI said it had hundreds of potential suspects. “A number of coincidences have occurred,” said spokesman Bob Ricks in Oklahoma City, without elaborating. “But to say that it was one particular group or one individual, we’re not anywhere near making a statement with regard to that. We have no indication with regard to group or with regard to reason.”

All of America was shocked.

* President Clinton, red-eyed and fighting tears, called the bombers “evil cowards” and asked people to pray for the victims. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno vowed to punish those responsible with death. Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said that if terrorists can strike in the safe and placid heart of America, then it is “an awful statement about the evil that lurks in the world.”

* Clinton ordered tighter security at government buildings everywhere. Bomb hoaxes forced the evacuation of federal employees in at least nine other buildings from Boston to California. Police at the U.S. Capitol were alerted to look for any possible bombs. The Secret Service added guards at the White House and began X-raying visitors’ lunch bags.

* Even before the smoke cleared, federal investigators began a search for tell-tale signs of ammonium nitrate and kerosene, critical ingredients in the explosive that damaged the World Trade Center in New York more than a year ago. They also focused on reports that three men were seen driving away from the federal building moments before the blast.

* Two groups denied speculation that they were involved. Dick Deguerin, an attorney representing the Branch Davidian religious sect, said that all remaining members were at a memorial service for those killed in the end to a standoff with federal agents two years ago to the day in Waco, Tex. And American Muslims asked the media to exercise restraint in reporting unsubstantiated accusations against them.

At nightfall, Oklahoma City was eerily reminiscent of Beirut in 1983, where the U.S. Embassy was car-bombed and 62 people were killed. In both cities, the faces of buildings were sheared off. In Oklahoma City, national guardsmen patrolled the streets like Beirut militia.

The terror here began shortly after 9 a.m.

Hundreds of employees had reported for work at the Alfred P. Murrah Building, which houses offices of agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Housing and Urban Development, a federal employees credit union and military recruiting offices.

Many had dropped off their children at a day-care center on the second floor. Employees in other downtown offices had just brought their youngsters to another day-care nursery at the YMCA nearby.

With a rumble like the wrath of God, a bomb--thought by some authorities to have been in a parked car near the front of the building--exploded and sent the entire north side of the structure crumbling to the ground.

The bomb was a large one, perhaps 1,000 to 1,200 pounds, said John Magaw, director of the ATF. Keating told reporters: “Obviously no amateur did this.” He added, bitterly: “Whoever did this was an animal.”

“I dove under that table,” said Brian Espe, a state veterinarian who was giving a slide presentation on the fifth floor. “When I came out,” he told the Associated Press, “I could see daylight if I looked north, and daylight if I looked west.”

Workers, some in their underwear because the blast had torn their clothing off, staggered, screaming, out of the building. They were covered with glass, plaster and blood. Many were in tears.

A nurse, Bobby Johnson, 42, was just getting off work at the South Park Medical Center, 4 1/2 miles away. He heard the explosion, then what sounded like another one, or perhaps an echo.

“Boom, boom, and the earth shook,” he said.

Johnson went home, turned on his television, saw what had happened and drove to the scene.

“It was awful,” he said. “Children’s bodies were mangled and decapitated. There was lots of blood and debris.”

Another nurse, Rena Keesling, 28, made her way downtown.

Nearly half the Murrah Building was gone, as if a nine-story bite had been taken out of its side. Cables and air ducts dangled from its bare ceilings and shattered bricks.

“I saw decapitated bodies,” she said. “Children were just all over. Their school papers and toys were strewn on the floor. One doctor picked up a group picture of the children and burst into tears. She couldn’t take it.”

Keesling said she saw a pair of women’s shoes standing alone, as if someone had been blown out of them.

Emergency workers tried to cover the bodies with blankets, she said, but the wind kept blowing them off.

Christine Johns, a nurse who was part of a team who collected the dead, said she had never in her entire career seen anything like this.

“Babies,” she said, “were wrapped around poles.”

A priest, Father George Miley, wearing purple vestments and carrying blood-covered latex gloves, arrived to minister to the dead and dying.

“They were all children,” he said. “Six babies.”

Parents and other relatives began to gather near the devastation, crying, shouting and searching for their children. Paramedic Heather Taylor told the Associated Press that at least 17 youngsters were killed instantly.

All were in the day-care center at the Murrah Building, said Dr. Carl Spengler. He said they ranged in age from 1 to 7 and that some were burned beyond recognition.

Rescuers began wading into the rubble with chain saws. Periodically they turned them off to listen for moaning, calls for help or other sounds of life. Most often, all they could hear was silence.

At one point, sheriff’s deputies told more than 75 doctors and nurses at a triage area nearby that anyone who was still inside had to be dead.

“We keep waiting and hoping,” said Yvette Cuinn, an emergency medical technician. She and the others stood in the gathering rain, their arms crossed.

Sixty firefighters worked in teams. “We’ve got to believe we’ve got some survivors,” said Assistant Fire Chief John Hansen. “That’s what’s keeping the rescue workers going.

“We gotta hope for something.”

The rescue teams struggled from floor to floor. By afternoon, they had made it to all of the floors, but had been able to make a thorough search of only about one-third of them. Much of the building was simply impassible.

The teams were joined by structural engineers, including some who had helped design the building. They moved slowly, fearful that parts of the rest of the torn wreckage might collapse and trap some of them, as well.

As evening approached, the teams counted 58 successful rescues.

One of those was credited to a team that included John Griffith, 45, a paramedic who found a woman buried in rubble that filled the basement. Only her right shoulder and the right side of her face were showing.

Griffith learned that her name was Amy and that she worked in the credit union on the third floor. That meant she had fallen four floors.

“Everything that you can imagine was on top of her,” Griffith said. “Door frames, computers, debris.”

He stayed with her for five hours.

“She asked if she was OK,” Griffith said. “I said, ‘You’re in great shape, your breathing is good, you have a good pulse. Right now you’re just having a bad hair day.”

Finally, at 3 p.m., rescuers had cleared enough of the debris to move her. She had a bad cut on one leg.

The cut, Griffith said, appeared to be her only injury.

In another part of the rubble, Griffith saw a woman who did not fare so well. Her legs had to be amputated, he said, before rescuers could remove her.

“This is something that happens in a war zone--Lebanon, Beirut, Sarajevo--not in the American heartland,” Griffith said. “Take everything you’d expect to find in an office, throw it in a blender, run it for five minutes, then cough it out.

“It was total destruction.”

As darkness fell, it grew harder and harder to find anyone still living. Nine dogs trained to pick up human scent spent four hours going through the wreckage.

Karen Hardesty, a representative of Oklahoma Canine Search and Rescue--a nonprofit volunteer group that brought the dogs from Tulsa--said they sniffed out 40 to 50 people, but none of them were alive.

Hardesty’s dog, named Lady, is a 3-year-old hound especially trained to find infants.

Babies smell different from adults, Hardesty said. “Lady is trained to find all humans, but looks harder and faster for babies.”

She did find one, Hardesty said.

But the baby was dead.

“It will hit me later,” Hardesty said. “I’ll get shaky, and I’ll cry.”

Rescuers brought in large lights so they could continue searching into the night. But growing rain presented a particular problem. Water would weigh down weaker parts of the building and add to the threat of collapse.

“As much as we like to rescue any survivors,” said Hansen, the assistant fire chief, “we’ve got to slow down and be very, very cautious.”

He said his men would have to crawl over corpses to get to anyone alive.

Gary Jenkins, a volunteer paramedic wearing a hospital tunic to his knees and a surgical mask up to the brim of his baseball cap, described the frustration of the search.

“There wasn’t much triage to provide,” he said. “For most of them (the victims), it was a little too late.”

He recounted what he saw in the wreckage: “Chaos, mayhem, unbelievable destruction, death, innocent victims, catastrophe.”

In a basement room at St. Anthony’s, the walls were lined with lists of victims who had been admitted with injuries. A steady stream of people passed, looking for family members and friends. Many realized that their worst fears were true.

Ken Violette, 37, and Susan Rapson, 38, searched the lists for Jaime Genver, a credit union employee. Both were in tears, bracing for the worst.

“If she were out of that building and able,” Rapson said, “she would have called.”

Janet Battle looked for the names of her parents, who had gone to the Murrah Building at 8:30 a.m. to handle some Social Security matters.

She said sadly that they wanted to be the first in line when the doors opened.

In Washington, the sadness of the tragedy affected Clinton visibly.

“The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens,” he said. “It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.”

In his statement, delivered personally in the White House briefing room, he added: “Let there be no room for doubt. We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe.”

Scenes of the devastation sent Los Angeles-area residents flocking to local Red Cross offices to donate blood.

All 20 telephone lines at the Los Angles Red Cross headquarters were jammed.

Spokeswoman Barbara Wilks said that there had been no request yet from Oklahoma City for additional supplies. She urged local residents unable to get through the telephone jam to wait a day or two before calling back to 1-800-GIVE LIFE or 1-800-974-2113.

“There’s always a need for blood,” she said.

Times staff writers Louis Sahagun in Oklahoma City, David Lauter in Washington and Bob Pool, Larry Stammer, J. Michael Kennedy and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.