A DEAFENING blast rocked the British army headquarters in Lisburn at around 4.30 p.m. yesterday.
Soldiers and civilians were caught in the explosion, some of them seriously injured, others badly shocked.
In its wake a large pall of charcoal grey smoke billowed over Thiepval Barracks, the British army's largest base in Northern Ireland.
There was silence for a while, then sounds of distress from the injured.
The force of the blast of the first car bomb wreaked extensive structural damage in the base.
Shrapnel from the bomb rained down on the barracks, and on sports fields nearby where teenage girls were playing hockey. Terrified, the girls ran for cover, shocked but uninjured.
Sirens blared. Fire tenders ambulances, police cars, rushed to the scene. Soldiers and civilian staff assisted paramedics and fire officers as they helped the injured.
As soldiers cleared the scene at the car park where the first bomb exploded, there was a second explosion some distance away near the base's medical centre where some of the injured were being brought.
Another car bomb. Soldiers in civilian clothing, and canteen staff cowered on the ground. A soldier's video of the scene graphically caught the faces of terror.
There was fear, but the panic was generally controlled. Fleets of ambulances came and went, first to the nearby Lagan Valley hospital, later to the larger hospitals in Belfast where the seriously injured were taken.
At the entrance to the barracks on Magheralave Road, anxious relatives of the large civilian staff gathered seeking information.
A young man in a fawn jacket who was waiting in his car to collect his wife who holds a civilian job, had to wait for over an hour to learn that she was safe.
"It was a terribly anxious time," he said with relief.
"I felt my whole car lift with the force of the explosion. It's amazing, if anywhere was safe you'd think it'd be here," he added.
After the first explosion a surprised driver of an articulated lorry who was in a queue waiting to get into the barracks emerged from his cab thinking he had a burst tyre.
People living near the perimeter of the barracks were bewildered and shocked.
The blasts were heard throughout Lisburn.
As the plume of smoke rose above the barracks, shoppers in the town centre stood stunned and appalled, astonished that a horror many believed was of the past had returned.
