The bomb blast in Omagh, 110 km west of Belfast, was the single most deadly act in three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland. Among those slain were women and children, Protestant and Catholic alike, many of them unwittingly evacuated towards the bomb after police received a misleading phoned warning.

The local Tyrone county hospital overflowed with wounded. Survivors used blown-off doors as makeshift stretchers. Others were ferried by ambulance or helicopter to hospitals as far as Belfast and Londonderry. The streets surrounding the bomb site were strewn with glass and rubble and streaked with blood.

``I saw bodies lying everywhere, dead people being zipped into bags,'' said Dorothy Boyle, 59, a Catholic resident of the town.

``The bodies werelying there with water running over them from burst pipes. There were limbs lying about that had been blown off people,'' she said, noting that one young pregnant woman had lost her legs. Among the 26 dead were a baby girl, 14 other females and 10 men, said a spokesman for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Hospitals treated more than 200 people, of whom 17 were reported in critical condition last night.

Rev John Gilmore, a Catholic priest, said he gave last rites to many of the injured in Tyrone county hospital. ``To start with it was just nonstop. There were people on the floors, mattresses and chairs,'' said Rev Gilmore. ``Some of the early ones were very badly injured. Some I anointed on mattresses on the floor.''

``The carnage, the children, a young baby, pure black, unrecognisable,'' said a Protestant local, Frank Hancock, too stunned to cry over what he'd seen. ``A young girl down a manhole that we had to pull out. A young lad burning, his hair pure singeing.'' ``Any man who puts that (bomb) there,''he said, pointing angrily at the bomb site, ``and says, `we're the real IRA', they're cowards.''

The attack coincided with the 29th anniversary of the deployment of British troops in Belfast, a traditional rallying point for Irish Republican Army supporters. It also came 17 days before US President Bill Clinton arrives to salute the compromise April agreement among eight local parties on how this British-ruled territory should be governed. The White House said Clinton's plans would not be affected.

No group claimed responsibility for planting the 200 kg bomb in the religiously mixed town, which was crowded with weekend shoppers attending a festival.But politicians unanimously blamed IRA dissidents who are committed to shattering the outlawed group's 13-month-old truce and the peace agreement it helped inspire.

Dissidents have planted several car bombs in other Northern Ireland towns in recent months, which caused many injuries but no deaths because of swift action by police.This time, a phoned warningto the BBC newsroom in Belfast claimed that a bomb was left outside Omagh's courthouse on High Street, atop a slope on the west end of town. Police began directing people away from the area, many of them east down Market Street. The blast 20 minutes later occurred behind the security cordon, tearing apart buildings and people alike.