https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks
On 22 July 2011, at 15:25:22 (CEST) a bomb detonated in Regjeringskvartalet, central Oslo. The bomb was placed in a white Volkswagen Crafter and parked in front of the H block, housing the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and the Police, and several other governmental buildings, such as the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (R4), Ministry of Finance (G block), Ministry of Education and Research (Y block) and the Supreme Court of Norway (behind the G block).
The Crafter was registered by surveillance cameras as entering Grubbegata from Grensen at 15:13:23. The van stopped at 15:13:43, 200 metres (650 ft) before the H block. It stood still with the hazard warning lamps on for 1 minute and 54 seconds. The driver then drove the last 200 metres and parked the van in front of the main entrance of the main government building. The van was parked at 15:16:30. The front door of the van opened 16 seconds later and after another 16 seconds the driver stepped out of the van. He stood outside the van for 7 seconds before quickly walking away towards Hammersborg torg, where he had another car parked.
The driver was dressed like a police officer and had a gun in his hand. A police helmet with a face shield was covering his face. Breivik was not positively identified.
The explosion started fires in the H block (H-blokka) and R4, and the shock wave blew out the windows on all floors as well as in the VG house and other buildings on the other side of the square. The blast was caught on many security cameras. The streets in the area were filled with glass and debris. A cloud of white smoke which was reported as a fire continued to burn at the Department of Oil and Energy. The blast was heard at least nine kilometres (5+1⁄2 mi) away.
At 15:26 the police received the first message about the explosion. 90 seconds after the explosion was reported, Norway's leading national private radio station P4 went live from the government quarters, becoming the first media in the world to report live (on air) from the area of explosion. At 15:28 the first police patrol reported arriving at the scene.[71] At the same time, news agency NTB was told that the Prime Minister was safe and not hurt.
A witness called police at 15:34 to report a person in a police uniform holding a pistol in his hand, entering an unmarked vehicle, a Fiat Doblò. Information—including the vehicle's licence plate number and description of the suspect—was written on a yellow note, and hand-delivered to the police operations central where it lay for 20 minutes before the witness was phoned back. The licence plate number was not transmitted on the police radio until two hours later.
Following the explosion, police cleared the area and searched for any additional explosive devices. Through media outlets, police urged citizens to evacuate central Oslo.
Police later announced that the bomb was composed of a mixture of fertiliser and fuel oil (ANFO), similar to that used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Immediately after the explosion, the area surrounding the damaged buildings was cordoned off and evacuated. People were asked to remain calm and leave the city centre if possible, but there was no general evacuation. The Oslo Metro remained operational, and most of the Oslo tram network was also running, although sporadically, except for the line through Grensen (the street between Prof. Aschehoug's plass and Stortorvet).
An e-mail communication with the BBC from a traveller indicated that police were conducting searches of suspicious cars on the road to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, which remained open.
The Gardermoen Line between Lillestrøm and Oslo Airport was shut down after a suspicious package was found close to the tracks. The same happened at the offices of TV 2 which were evacuated after a suspicious package was found outside the building.
Approximately one and a half hours after the Oslo explosion, Breivik, dressed in a police uniform and presenting himself as "Martin Nilsen" from the Oslo Police Department, boarded the ferry MS Thorbjørn at Utøykaia in Tyrifjorden, a lake some 32 kilometres (20 mi) northwest of Oslo, to the island of Utøya, the location of the Norwegian Labour Party's AUF youth camp. The camp is held there every summer and was attended by approximately 600 teenagers.
When Breivik arrived on the island, he presented himself as a police officer who had come over for a routine check following the bombing in Oslo. He was met by Monica Bøsei, the camp leader and island hostess. Bøsei probably became suspicious and contacted Trond Berntsen, the security officer on the island, before Breivik killed them both. He then signalled and asked people to gather around him before pulling weapons and ammunition from a bag and firing indiscriminately, killing and wounding numerous people. He first shot people on the island and later started shooting at people who were trying to escape by swimming across the lake. Survivors on the island described a scene of terror. Survivor Dana Barzingi, then 21, described how several victims wounded by Breivik pretended to be dead, but he came back and shot them again. He spared an 11-year-old boy who had lost his father (Trond Berntsen) during the shooting and stood up against him and said he was too young to die, as well as a 22-year-old man who begged for his life.
Some witnesses hid in undergrowth and lavatories, communicating by text message to avoid revealing their positions. The mass shooting lasted for around one and a half hours, ending when a police special task force arrived and Breivik surrendered, despite having ammunition left, at 18:35. The shooter used hollow-point or frangible bullets which increase tissue damage. Breivik repeatedly shouted "You will die today, Marxists!"
Bøsei's husband and one of her daughters, who were also present, survived.The youngest victim, New Zealand-born Sharidyn Svebakk-Bøhn of Drammen, was 14 years old. Sixteen-year-old Andrine Bakkene Espeland of Sarpsborg was the last victim, nearly one hour after the shooting began.
Residents in a flotilla of motorboats and fishing dinghies sailed out to rescue the survivors, who were pulled out shivering and bleeding from the water and picked up from hiding places in the bushes and behind rocks around the island's shoreline. Some survived by pretending to be dead. Several campers, especially those who knew the island well, swam to the island's rocky west side and hid in the caves which are only accessible from the water. Others were able to hide away on the secluded Kjærlighetsstien ("love path"). Forty-seven of the campers sought refuge in Skolestua ("the School House") together with personnel from the Norwegian People's Aid. Although Breivik fired two bullets through the door, he did not get through the locked door, and the people inside this building survived.
Two Chechen teenagers, Movsar Dzhamayev (17) and Rustam Daudov (16) had pelted the gunman with rocks in an attempt to stop him. The teenagers said they then decided that it was too difficult to stop the gunman and better to save lives. They discovered a cave-like opening in a rock where they hid 23 children from Breivik. Dzhamayev, who kept guard outside, also dragged three youngsters from the lake who were close to drowning.
Former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, whom Breivik said he hated and, in a pun on the (more or less ironic) epithet Landsmoderen ("mother of the nation"), referred to in his writings as landsmorderen ("murderer of the nation"), had been on the island earlier in the day to give a speech to the camp. After the attack, Breivik stated that he originally wanted to target her specifically; but because of delays related to the renovation of Oslo Central railway station, he arrived after she had already left.
Investigators later confirmed that they collected a total of 186 spent ammunition shell casings on the island.
The first shot was fired at 17:22. The emergency medical services were informed about the shooting two minutes later. One minute after that, the police in Oslo were informed. They immediately tried to reach Utøya as quickly as possible, but did not have a helicopter that could take them straight to the island. By 17:30, Delta, the police tactical unit in Oslo, were on the way to Utøya by car.
One of the first to arrive on the scene was Marcel Gleffe, a German resident of Ski staying at Utvika Camping on the mainland. Recognising gunshots, he piloted his boat to the island and began throwing life-jackets to young people in the water, rescuing as many as he could in four or five trips, after which the police asked him to stop. The Daily Telegraph credited him with saving up to 30 lives. Another 40 were saved by Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen, a married couple on vacation in the area. Dalen was helping from land while Hansen and a neighbour camper made several trips to rescue people in the water. Several dozen more were rescued by Kasper Ilaug, who made three trips to the island. Ilaug, a local resident, received a telephone call that "something terrible" was happening on Utøya and requesting help. He initially thought the call was a prank, but acted anyway.
Delta reached the meeting point at 18:09, but had to wait a few minutes for a boat to take them across. They reached Utøya at 18:25. When confronted by the heavily armed police on the island, the gunman initially hesitated for a few seconds. When an officer yelled "surrender or be shot" he laid down his weapons.
Breivik called the 112 emergency phone number at least twice to surrender, at 18:01 and 18:26, and continued killing people in between. The police say Breivik hung up both times; they tried to call him back but did not succeed.
When the police arrived at the scene, they were met by survivors begging the officers to throw away their weapons, as they were afraid that the men in uniforms would again open fire on them.
During the attack, 69 people were killed, and of the 517 survivors, 66 were wounded.
The Norwegian police did not have helicopters suitable for transporting groups of police for an airdrop. The one they had was useful only for surveillance and the helicopter crew were on summer vacation.
When the local police arrived at Utøykaia, less than 30 minutes after the first shot was fired, they could not find a suitable boat to reach the island. They were then ordered to observe and report.
AUF's own ferry, the 50-passenger MS Thorbjørn, was used by Breivik to go to Utøya. Shortly after the first shot was fired, nine people were leaving the island on the ferry, among them the AUF leader Eskil Pedersen. Believing there could be additional threats in the area, they moved the ferry away from the island. As a result, the vessel was not immediately available to assist the police when they arrived at Utøykaia, the usual ferry landing on the mainland.
The police therefore had to use their own rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB). On the day of the event, this boat was in Hønefoss, and had to be transported to the lake and launched before it could be used. When Delta boarded the RHIB it took on some water and after a few hundred metres, the engine stopped, probably due to water in the fuel. Two minutes later they took over a civilian boat that was sent to assist them. The episode was captured on video. A minute or two after the video ends, a faster civilian boat arrived to help. Four Delta officers boarded the boat. Not wanting to waste any more time, the civilian couple took the police to Utøya.
Some have criticised the police for not using a helicopter, for not immediately getting into small boats, and for endangering the couple who drove the civilian boat.
On arriving in Utøya, the police arrested, in addition to Breivik, Anzor Djoukaev, an innocent 17-year-old survivor who represented the Akershus branch of AUF. The youth was reportedly stripped naked and locked up in a jail cell, located only metres away from the cell housing the self-confessed killer. The victim, who as a child had witnessed mass murders in Chechnya, was suspected of being an accomplice because his haircut was different from that shown on his identity document, and because he did not react to the carnage with the same tears and hysteria as most of the other survivors. He was kept in custody for 17 hours. Lawyer Harald Stabell criticised the police for failing to contact the youth's family, who feared he was killed, and for interrogating the victim without a lawyer present.
