July 27, 1996

A massive explosion rocked Centennial Olympic Park early today, injuring hundreds of people, fire officials said. A spokeswoman for the Atlanta Fire Department, who would not give her name, said that 150 to 200 people were injured at about 1:15 A.M. when the explosion struck a tower near a stage where thousands of people were watching a concert.

Amy Van Dyken began the centennial Olympic Games lying on the pool deck with severe muscle cramps. She ended the swimming competition by standing on the victory podium as the first American woman to win four gold medals at one Olympics, winter or summer. With a victory tonight in the 50-meter freestyle over the world record-holder Le Jingyi of China, Van Dyken, 23, of Denver, reached a level of achievement that Florence Griffith Joyner never attained, that Bonnie Blair never reached, that even Babe Didrikson never fulfilled.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani says that a welfare bill speeding through Congress would impose immense new costs on New York City by cutting Federal aid for poor children, disabled people and legal immigrants. In a letter this week to Congressional leaders, Mr. Giuliani said he supported the basic concept of the bill, which would eliminate the Federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children and give states vast new authority to run their own welfare and work programs with lump sums of Federal money.

A Not-So-Perfect Softball Adventure The United States pitcher Lisa Fernandez was a strike away from a perfect game against Australia when a shocking homer sent the American women to only their second loss in 117 games, dating to 1986. Page 31.

Radar records show that T.W.A. Flight 800 apparently continued to fly for 24 seconds after it exploded, raising the possibility that some of the passengers were alive in the last seconds, investigators said, and the jetliner's engines probably continued to run as it moved over the water. Article, page 28.