'I have never seen such scenes': Witnesses describe the Brussels attacks
Hundreds of people were caught up in the multiple explosions in Brussels Tuesday morning, during attacks at the airport and a metro station that left dozens of people dead and many more wounded.
Eyewitnesses described chaotic and traumatic scenes at both locations during the course of the morning.
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At the city's Zaventem airport, people described huge explosions, ceilings collapsing, shattered windows and people covered in blood. Hundreds ran from the terminal building.
At the Maelbeek metro station near the European Union, footage emerged of people walking through dark metro tunnels.
At Brussels airport
Niel Caignau, an employee of Swissport, told local news outlet VRT he "felt a big explosion... and saw a plume of smoke come out."
"The windows are completely shattered," he said.
48-year-old Fabrice Dekoninck, who is French but lives in Brussels, was on a plane waiting to fly to Geneva when the explosions happened.
He and his fellow passengers were told of the bombs by cabin crew and saw smoke from the terminal, he told Mashable, before they were transferred to a huge hangar.
“Everybody stayed very quiet,” he said. “People were a bit scared.” He saw at least 10 armoured cars and several soldiers in masks.
Three hours after the event he was still in the hangar, with armoured guards keeping watch. An announcement came over the public address system while he was talking to Mashable, warning of controlled explosions being carried out by police.
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American Denise Brandt told Sky News that she "knew it was an explosion because I've been around explosions before."
"I felt the explosion, the way it feels through your body," she said. "And we just looked at each other and I said 'Let's go this way.' Then we saw people running, crying, toward us. So I knew we were going in the right direction and away from it."
Another witness at the airport, interviewed by journalist Steve Clemons, described "chaos" and smoke in the departures area.
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At Maelbeek metro station
The explosion at the busy train station happened an hour later.
Politico tech reporter Zoya Sheftalovich, told Mashable of an “extremely shocking and horrifying” situation there, with at least a dozen people lying on the ground and covered in blankets at the entrance to the station.
“People were crying, people were just in shock,” she said. “Police and ambulances couldn’t get through because of traffic gridlock in the city,”
It was “entirely distressing,” she said. “I have never seen such scenes before in my life.”
“Brussels has felt on edge for months, so this just feels like something of an inevitability. I don’t plan on catching the metro for a while.”
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Local teacher Adrien Sauvage, who has lived in the European quarter of Brussels for 29 years, rushed to see if his parents were OK.
“I arrived outside their house and I heard the explosion,” he told Mashable. “I was afraid because I was in the street.”
“I saw people covered in blood lying on the ground, lots of police, ambulances and helicopters. The people didn’t know what to do.”
“I was shocked,” he added. He posted a video from the scene to Facebook.
Evan Lamos, a multimedia producer based in Brussels, was on the train at the time..
"We felt a blast of air and my ears popped shortly after leaving Schuman station," he wrote on his Twitter account. "The Metro stopped immediately." After hearing more "soft thudding" he and his fellow passengers were evacuated amid thick smoke in scenes that seemed reminiscent of the 7/7 bombings in London.
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Lamos helped a small child out from the Metro following the incident.
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The atmosphere in Brussels now
Richard Medic, 44, who works for Soonfeed in the city and has lived there for seven years, told Mashable the streets were “eerily silent” following the explosion in the city.
Medic had just dropped his daughter off at daycare when he passed the scene. “Maelbeek is my local metro,” he said. “We walk past there every day.”
“It’s eerily silent. You just heard hear the sirens occasionally and people standing around looking shocked.”
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Medic talks of “rising tension” and “increased security” in the city. “We’ll be on lockdown,” he said.
However, he refused to be cowed by terror.
“I always said when the day comes that I have to change my route I will leave Brussels,” he told Mashable. “I’m not changing my route tomorrow.”
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Tim Chester was Senior Editor, Real Time News in Los Angeles. Before that he was Deputy Editor of Mashable UK in London. Prior to joining Mashable, Tim was a Senior Web Editor at Penguin Random House, helping to relaunch the Rough Guides website and other travel brands. He was also a writer for Buzzfeed, GQ and The Sunday Times, covering everything from culture to tech and current affairs. Before that, he was Deputy Editor at NME.COM, overseeing content and development on the London-based music and entertainment site. Tim loves music and travel and has combined these two passions at festivals from Iceland to Malawi and beyond.
