On March 4 1972, what is regarded as one of the most horrific atrocities of the Troubles sent shivers through the spines of the Belfast population.
An IRA bomb left in a packed city centre bar on a busy Saturday afternoon killed two young female friends and injured more than 130, leaving many of them mutilated and maimed by the lost of numerous limbs.
More than 100 of the injured were women and children.
The popular Cornmarket premises, which prided itself on its cross-community patronship, had been packed with shoppers, many of them young people, when the IRA bomb exploded at around 4.30pm.
The bombers had called 999 and given a five-minute bomb warning for the general area, but just two minutes later the device exploded amidst the unsuspecting innocents of the Abercorn Bar.
Both the Official and Provisional IRA denied the bombing at the time, with a PIRA spokesman in Dublin blaming "unionist extremists".
However, it has long been accepted that the Provisional IRA were responsible for the bombing.
The explosion claimed the lives of catholic friends Ann Owens (22) and Janet Bereen (21), both of whom were from Belfast.
They had been out shopping and had called into the Abercorn Bar for a coffee when the bomb went off in the packed restaurant.
Dozens of people were badly injured in the explosion with the coroner describing the incident as "pathological murder of the most depraved kind."
Newspaper reports from the time state how bloodied men and women, shocked in the aftermath of the explosion, stumbled and crawled over each other.
Thick smoke filled the air while maimed victims – many of whom had lost limbs, with some having lost numerous body parts – waited for help to reach them.
Sirens filled the busy shopping district as emergency personnel attempted to reach the injured.
The extent of injuries led to the Royal Victoria Hospital implementing a disaster plan for the first time.
One media report from the time described how: "Two sisters have both been maimed.
"One, who planned to marry a Co Donegal man, has lost both legs, an arm and an eye. Her sister has lost both legs.
"A male victim lost two legs and a female lost one leg and one arm. Another female lost one limb and three of the injured have lost eyes."
Police had received an anonymous 999 call at 4.28pm that day with the caller stating that a bomb would go off in Castle Lane in five minutes.
It was said that no location was given.
A woman who had been in the restaurant prior to the bomb told an inquest that she had seen two young girls walk from the bar, leaving a bag behind, shortly before the explosion.
The woman said she had remarked to a friend that the girl's had forgotten a bag but would come back for it.
She herself left the bar a short time later and was standing at a nearby bus stop when she heard the explosion.
A detective-sergeant said it had been established that the seat of the explosion was at the right of the table where the two girls had been earlier sitting.
Interviewed for the 1994 book Endgame medical staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital who treated the survivors on the day of the Abercorn bomb recalled the aftermath of the explosion.
The father of one of the bomb's victims, Janet Bereen, was a senior anaesthetist at the Royal Victoria Hospital and had operated on victims, unaware that his daughter had been killed.
He only learned of his 21-year-old daughter's death when he returned home that evening.
The Abercorn Bar closed in 1988.
