Oslo, Oklahoma City Bombings Share Characteristics

Jon Jordan, News 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The recent terrorist bombing in Norway which killed at least seven people was caused by what is being called an "Oklahoma City-type bomb" made of fertilizer.

But the type of bomb isn't the only similarity according to one person who has seen the events unfolding in Norway and Oklahoma City.

Berit Sweeney remembers what happened in Oklahoma City April 19, 1995. She was on the 33rd floor of the Liberty Tower the morning the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed. The images she saw that day are eerily similar to those she is now seeing come out of her native country.

Sweeney lives in Edmond now, but she grew up in Norway and still has a great deal of family there. Many of them were working in downtown Oslo where the bomb went off.

She said the Timothy McVeigh-type attacker and the pictures broadcast from her native country are all too similar.

"It really reminds me so much of the Oklahoma bombing, of running up towards the YMCA and seeing what was going on there. I think it's very similar with the frantic people running all over the place," Sweeney said.

Just as Oklahomans were able to come together in the days following the bombing here, Sweeney said she takes strength in knowing her fellow Norwegians can do the same.

"I expect them to pull together just like the Oklahomans did and move forward and do the best they can to help everyone and that's just what I see happening," she said.

A spokesman for the Murrah Bombing Memorial said that efforts are already underway to help the people of Norway recover from their unfolding tragedy.