Explosion rips through Northern Irish town

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - An explosion rocked a busy shopping area in the Northern Irish town of Omagh on Saturday and first reports said a large number of people were injured.

Police said they had received a warning about 40 minutes before the explosion in the center of the town, which is about 50 miles (80 km) west of Belfast.

Pub manager Nigel O'Kane told Sky News there were unconfirmed reports of eight to 10 people dead. "It is carnage. It is the worst possible place to put a bomb," he said. "There are people being carried in and out of buildings and a lot of people are in tears searching for loved ones."

Police termed the blast a "serious explosion." They were evacuating an area near the courthouse when the bomb went off several hundred yards (meters) away.

The local hospital called in extra emergency staff and said a large number of people had been injured, some of them seriously.

The reports of dead could not immediately be confirmed.

Northern Ireland's main Republican and Protestant guerrilla groups are operating cease-fires but dissident splinter groups opposed to the peace process have let off a number of bombs in the past few months, causing widespread damage but few serious injuries.

Omagh is a town where Protestants and Roman Catholics have lived side by side fairly peaceably during the past 29 years of sectarian strife.

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