It may be 31 years, but the memories of the devastating Magoo’s Bar bombing on the Durban beachfront are still fresh in the minds of those affected by the blast which claimed the lives of three people.
Cassandra Garofallou, who was at the Magoo’s bar that night with four friends, is one of the lucky people to escape unharmed.
“I think we had only been there for about half an hour. We had ordered our first drinks and they had just come when the bomb went off,” she recalled.
The 60kg bomb, planted by MK operative Robert McBride in a car parked outside Magoo’s and the adjacent Why Not Bar, went off just after 9pm on June 14, 1986, killing Angelique Pattenden, Julie van der Linde and Marchelle Gerrard, and injuring 73 people.
At first Garofallou, who unbeknown to her was pregnant, did not think it was a bomb.
“Never in my wildest dream had I thought it would happen. There was a band performing that night and in the 80s you had all the effects like smoke coming out from the stage.
“For a second I thought that it was coming from the small stage in the corner.”
Then a 17-year-old student nurse at St Augustine’s hospital, she was out to have fun.
“Yes, I was 17 and not supposed to be at a bar,” she said, laughing.
On realising that a bomb had gone off, she and the other patrons headed for the exit.
“I was stunned by the calmness, Everyone just went out, there was no rushing or running. I think it was because we had always been told there are normally two bombs.
“I took my bag, got into the car and we left. One girl I was with, Kim, had seen somebody who had been killed.”
Garofallou remembers seeing shattered glass from the building and from all the cars in the vicinity.
