'I was there': Manchester IRA bomb, 1996

5 live Daily looks back at an historic moment through the eyes of those who were there.

More than 200 people were injured - mainly by flying glass - when the bomb exploded in Corporation St on 15 June 1996. But, thanks to a prompt response by the police to evacuate the city centre, no-one was killed.

Many of the wounded were behind the police cordon

The explosion happened at about 1120 BST on Corporation Street outside the Arndale shopping centre.

The bomb was the second biggest to have exploded on mainland Britain, weighing 3,300lb.

It went off on the same day that England played Scotland at Wembley in the Euro 96 football tournament.

A local television station received a telephone warning at 1000 BST - just as the city centre was filling up with Saturday shoppers. The caller used a recognised IRA codeword.

Ray Snook with his daughter after he'd moved back into his shop following the bomb

Roy Snook: " I remember people screaming and throwing themselves to the floor"

One hour and 20 minutes after the warning, police were still clearing hundreds of people from a huge area of central Manchester.

Roy Snook owned a jewellery shop in the city centre and was one of those who was evacuated.

He didn't see his shop for two weeks following the bomb and said he was eventually relocated for a short period: "I was moved to another part of the city centre and traded there for 18 months until we got back in," he said. " There was a tremendous loss of business and profit."

Many of those injured were outside the police cordon. Seventy bystanders were ferried to three hospitals in ambulances. Others walked or were taken by friends.

The bomb rocked the city centre

Lynne Spears: "It was so scary, the place was spooky"

A consultant at a local hospital said most of the seriously injured - including a pregnant woman thrown 15 ft (4.6 m) into the air - had suffered deep glass wounds which would require surgery.

Lynne Spears was in the hairdressers when she heard the news about the bomb and was due to get married later that day. She remembers the horror of the bombing "coming into town it was so surreal, it was so quiet. Afterwards you could still feel the tension".

The immense damage done to buildings in the city centre led to a total regeneration - without the bomb, Manchester may not have had such a dramatic opportunity for rebirth, funded by private investors and government cash.

Manchester turned bomb devastation into opportunity for change

Ian Simpson: "Manchester had to get itself back and open"

A public-private task force set up to lead the post-bomb regeneration with a combination of government and European money.

Ian Simpson was one of the architects who was renowned for transforming Manchester's skyline and says there was an opportunity amongst the devastation "the city took the opportunity to instead of just rebuilding, they said let's retransform ourselves".

A total of £500m of private sector cash was brought in between 1996-99.