6pm: Doors open at Manchester Arena in the north of the city centre. US pop singer Ariana Grande is on the bill for a sell-out concert. Fans, many of them teenage girls, excitedly share selfies as they wait for the show to begin. The 21,000-capacity venue, which is the biggest indoor arena in the UK and the second larges in Europe, was sold out.
- Flat in Granby House in the heart of Manchester was raided by officers and soldiers with specialist equipment
- Greater Manchester Police confirmed three arrests have been made in south of city in the area of Fallowfield
- Witnesses described seeing a man being marched out of the house at gunpoint in the early hours of morning
- Monday night suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured 119 at a concert in Manchester Arena
- The house in which today’s arrests were made are said to be just two streets down from the suicide bomber’s
7.30pm: The show gets underway with a support act BIA, an American rapper, taking the stage. Fans wait patiently for the main event – American superstar Ariana Grande.
9pm: Ariana Grande arrives on stage to the delight of the thousands of fans who have travelled the globe to watch her perform her hits which include Problem, Bang Bang and Break Free.
10.30pm: The star leaves the show and thousands of gleeful fans begin to file out of the arena’s four exits. With the huge venue only half-empty, the horrifying sound of the booming bomb reverberates around the arena. Witnesses describe being knocked from their feet by an explosion and seeing dozens of injured, possibly dead, people including children lying on the floor. Others describe panic as concert-goers run for exits.
10.33pm: Greater Manchester Police (GMP) are called to reports of an explosion at Manchester Arena. Dozens of emergency services vehicles stream into the area and the emergency is confirmed two minutes later.
10.46pm: The North West Ambulance Service are called to the scene. They send 60 ambulances to Manchester Arena where victims have been maimed with shrapnel including nails and metal nuts from a bomb.
https://vimeo.com/218802026
The details of the arrests emerged as:
Three men were arrested in south Manchester in connection with the concert bomb attack on Monday night
More details emerged of those killed, including a Polish couple and an aunt who shielded her niece in the blast
Prime Minister Theresa May raised the terrorism threat level in Britain to ‘critical’ – the highest possible rating
Thousands of troops will be deployed to guard ‘key locations’ amid fears another attack is ‘imminent’
Home Secretary Amber Rudd vented her frustration over US leaks revealing details about the attack
Countries around the world supported Britain by lighting up major buildings in the colours of the Union Jack
French president Emmanuel Macron revealed plans to extend the country’s state of emergency until November.
Elsewhere, Vicarage Field shopping centre was evacuated as police dealt with a suspicious package in Barking.
This graphic shows where the explosion took place, in the foyer area, leading towards Victoria railway station
The bomber is believed to have entered a foyer area of the venue through doors opened to allow young music fans to leave
10.55pm: Police urge people to stay away from the area as responders deal with a ‘serious incident’. A huge police cordon is set up surrounding the building and roads are closed to the public as fans flee the massacre.
11.46pm: Police confirm there have been a number fatalities, but cannot confirm the figure.
Tuesday
1.10am: Nineteen people are confirmed dead and around 50 others injured following the suspected explosion police say is being treated as a terrorist incident.
1.35am: A controlled explosion is carried out on a suspicious item in the Cathedral Gardens area near Manchester Arena. It is later confirmed to be abandoned clothing.
Bloodied concertgoers were pictured being helped by armed police outside the arena after explosions rang out at the gig
2.15am: Prime Minister Theresa May says her thoughts are with the victims and families of those affected in ‘what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack’.
3.51am: Shortly before 4am Ariana Grande tweets that she is ‘broken’, adding: ‘From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry.’
7am: GMP Chief Constable Ian Hopkins gives a statement. He says the death toll has risen to 22, including children, with 59 injured. He confirms police are treating the attack as a terrorist incident and believe it was carried out by a suicide bomber detonating an improvised explosive device.
9.02am: US President Donald Trump expresses his ‘deepest condolences’ and calls those responsible ‘evil losers’.
9.30am: The first victim of the atrocity is named as Georgina Callander. Miss Callander, 18, had posted a picture of herself with Ariana Grande at the same venue two years ago, captioning it: ‘My meet and greet photos came through, she was so cute and lovely, I hugged her so tight and she said she loved my bow. I can’t get over this, I never will.’
10.30am: GMP says it has arrested a 23-year-old man in South Manchester in connection with the incident. Footage shows officers leading the handcuffed 23-year-old to a police van outside a Morrisons supermarket in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, south Manchester at about 10.30am this morning. Witnesses said the man was ordered to ‘get on the ground’ and that he was seen smiling at one point as a team of officers, who had arrived in a black Mercedes, made the arrest.
11am: After chairing a Cobra meeting, Mrs May says the attacker has been identified by security services, but does not release details. She says the ‘callous’ attack was ‘among the worst terrorism we have experienced in the United Kingdom’.
11.30am: The ambulance service confirm the number of people injured has reached at least 119. Of those hurt, 59 were taken to eight different hospitals in the Manchester area while around 60 were treated at the scene as walking wounded. The trust’s chief executive Derek Cartwright admitted nothing could prepare his staff for a moment like this.
12.12pm: The Queen releases a statement expressing her ‘deepest sympathy’ to all those affected by the explosion, adding that the whole nation had been shocked by the ‘death and injury’.
12.41pm: Islamic State claims responsibility for the atrocity. The extremists were quick to call the killer one of their soldiers, as has become the trend in the wake of many recent attacks in Europe. According to the SITE Intel Group, which monitors jihadist groups, the IS statement described the explosion as having taken place at a ‘shamelessconcert arena’. 
Eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos (left), 18-year-old Georgina Callander (right) and 26-year-old John Atkinson have been named as three of the 22 victims of the suicide bombing. It is feared many children are among those killed, as well as parents who had accompanied their youngsters to the concert or were picking them up
1.37pm: Saffie Roussos, 8, is confirmed as the youngest named victim of the terror attack. She has been described as ‘simply beautiful’. Chris Upton, the headteacher of her school, Tarleton Community Primary, said: ‘The thought that anyone could go out to a concert and not come home is heartbreaking.’ Minutes later, the third victim was named – 26-year-old John Atkinson from Radcliffe who was leaving the concert. Friends and family have paid their respects online, describing him as an ‘amazing young man’.
2.02pm: GMP say they have executed warrants at addresses in Whalley Range, and one in Fallowfield where they carried out a controlled explosion.
4.30pm: Attacker named as Salman Abedi. Abedi, a 23-year-old British man of Libyan origin, detonated a deadly explosive that ripped through crowds leaving an Ariana Grande concert at 10.30pm. Police are trying to determine whether Abedi acted alone or was part of a wider terror cell.
MI5 trawl travel lists
MI5 are looking again at those who have returned from Syria, Iraq and Libya for clues to someone who has not been ‘compromised’ and crossed the security radar who could have trained in bomb making there.
Jihadi fighters there have regularly made devices that have been packed with shrapnel, nails, nuts and bombs to cause maximum loss of life and mayhem of the type used in Manchester.
These can be sophisticated devices and while the recipes are well known, they require a degree of engineering skills.
In Syria and Iraq explosives are plentiful much of it captured while in Libya it is even easier to obtain, often smuggled in from Niger and Chad.
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