'Many more victims' of Omagh bombing

Amateur video of the scene in Omagh after the explosion which killed 29 people

OMAGH, N. Ireland (Reuters) -- The number of lives devastated in Northern Ireland's worst bombing was far in excess of the official death toll of 29, a coroner said.

Among the uncounted victims were the unborn twins of a pregnant woman.

Charting the horrific scale of the 1998 car-bombing in Omagh by renegade republicans, coroner John Leckey said more than 300 people were injured, some very seriously. Others were mentally scarred for life.

He said: "The true number of casualties -- and the word 'casualties' deserves to have a generous interpretation -- from the Omagh bomb explosion is, without doubt, far in excess of the number killed and injured, and the exact number may never be known."

The inquest opened as one of the biggest investigations ever mounted by police on both sides of the Irish border showed little sign of progress.

About 3,000 people have been interviewed, some 1,800 cars have been traced and 35 tonnes of rubble at the blast scene sifted for clues.

Scores of suspects have been brought in for questioning but just one person has been charged.

The ringleaders are still free. Police say they know who they are, but lack evidence to charge them.

Leckey, in an opening statement to the inquest, said his job was to establish facts, not to apportion criminal blame.

"The hearing of the inquests into the deaths of the 29 deceased... will be a harrowing time for their families and, inevitably, it will resurrect many sad and unpleasant memories," he told families and lawyers in a municipal leisure complex fitted out as a coroner's court for the four-week hearing.

Without naming her, Leckey recalled that a woman earlier identified as Avril Monaghan who lived near Omagh was pregnant when she was killed.

"As a consequence of the explosion 29 persons died including a 30-year-old woman who was about 34 weeks pregnant and expecting twin girls.

"The unborn twin girls also died as a result of the bomb explosion. Who could deny that the true number of fatalities was in reality 31?"

Monaghan's 18-month-old daughter Maura Teresa and her mother Mary Grimes, 65, were also killed in the explosion.

The bomb -- set off by the "Real IRA" faction -- killed men, women and children from the tightly knit communities of Omagh and surrounding small towns in the fertile farming country 110 kilometres (70 miles) west of Belfast.

The devastated market town on August 15, 1998

Its impact spread further afield. Three children from Buncrana in the Irish republic died along with two visiting Spaniards -- a teacher and a 12-year-old pupil -- from Madrid.

Northern Ireland has a new power-sharing government of pro-British Protestant and pro-Irish Roman Catholic parties, the fruit of a peace process spawned by truces by major militias which warred for 30 years about Britain's right to rule.

The Real IRA, a small splinter group from the powerful Irish Republican Army, is among a handful of dissident factions on both sides of the religious gulf which sporadically emerge from the shadows launching attacks in a bid to scupper peace hopes.

Leckey, sitting without a jury, said the bomb had exploded just after 3:00 pm on Saturday, August 15, 1998.

"It was a fine summer day and Market Street was thronged with shoppers. About half an hour earlier, the first of three telephone calls was received warning that a bomb was due to go off in Omagh.

"The police were in the course of clearing Market Street when the bomb exploded."

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