At least 28 people were killed and dozens more injured as coordinated terrorist attacks rocked the Brussels airport and subway system during rush hour Tuesday morning.
Bombings at the American Airlines counter at Zaventem Airport and the metro station in the heavily Muslim section of Maelbeeks were almost immediately confirmed as terror attacks. The attack at the airport was reportedly accompanied by shouts in Arabic and gunfire.
“What we feared has happened, we were hit by blind attacks,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.
The attacks came four days after the main suspect in the November Paris attacks was arrested in Brussels, and even as Brussels was braced for new attacks. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the bombings in the European Union capital are certain to add new fire to the raging debate of refugees from Muslim nations where terrorist groups are active. Europe has taken in more than million refugees, and terror groups including ISIS have said they are infiltrating the wave of migrants.
“We are at war,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday. “We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war.”
The first two explosions rocked the departure hall at the Brussels airport shortly after 8 a.m. local time. Early reports placed the number of dead at 13, with as many as 35 wounded. Witnesses told The Associated Press that one occurred at an excess baggage payment counter and the other near a Starbucks cafe.
“There were two explosions in the departure area, one probably caused by a suicide bomber,” said Frederic Van Leeuw of the attack on the airport.
Witnesses recounted a harrowing and chaotic scene.
“First there was one explosion. Everyone started to run and panic broke out. Then a second explosion was heard,” one witness told The Brussels Times about the airport explosion.
Zach Mouzoun, who arrived on a flight from Geneva about 10 minutes before the first blast, told BFM television that the second, louder explosion brought down ceilings and ruptured pipes, mixing water with blood from victims.
“It was atrocious. The ceilings collapsed,” he said. “There was blood everywhere, injured people, bags everywhere.”
“We were walking in the debris. It was a war scene,” he said.
Marie-Odile Lognard, a traveller who was lining up in the departures hall for a flight to Abu Dhabi, told BFM television that people panicked after the first explosion about 20 meters from her and that a second explosion about 15 seconds later caused parts of the ceiling to collapse.
“I knew it was an explosion because I’ve been around explosions before,” said Denise Brandt, an American woman interviewed by Sky television.
“I felt the explosion, the way it feels through your body. And we just looked at each other and I said let’s go this way. It was over there. There was just this instinct to get away from it. Then we saw people running, crying, toward us. So I knew we were going in the right direction and away from it. ”
Amateur video shown on France’s i-Tele television showed passengers including a child running with a backpack dashing out of the terminal different directions as they tugged luggage.
Marc Noel, 63, was about to board a Delta flight to Atlanta, to return to his home in Raleigh, North Carolina.
A Belgium native, Noel says he was in an airport shop buying automobile magazines was the first explosion occurred about 50 yards away.
“People were crying, shouting, children. It was a horrible experience,” he told AP. He said his decision to buy the magazines might have saved his life. “I don’t want to think about it, but I would probably have been in that place when the bomb went off.”
Moments later at the metro station, another explosion was reported on a train that was stopped at the Maelbeek subway station, not far from the headquarters of the European Union. Ian McCafferty told The Irish Times he was just getting off the metro at the stop before Maelbeek around 8:20 a.m. when he heard a “loud muffled thud” but, because of construction at the metro, he “didn’t really think much of it.
“There was a large military presence and mass confusion,” he said. “People started to run. Some people were crying. The two stations are only a stone’s throw apart. We were the last train through the station before the blast.”
Rescue workers set up a makeshift treatment center in a local pub near the train station. Dazed and shocked morning travelers streamed from the metro entrances as police tried to set up a security cordon.
Brussels police spokesman Christian De Coninck said there were deaths at the station, and local reports put the number at 15, with another 55 injured.
Alexandre Brans, 32, who was wiping blood from his face, said: “The metro was leaving Maelbeek station when there was a really loud explosion. It was panic everywhere. There were a lot of people in the metro.”
First responders ran through the street outside with two people on stretchers, their clothes badly torn.
After his arrest on Friday, Salah Abdeslam, who is suspected of taking part in the Nov. 13 Paris attack that killed 130 people, told authorities he had created a new network and was planning new attacks.
Belgium’s interior minister announced that the terror threat was being raised to its maximum level. All flights were canceled and arriving planes and trains were diverted.
Authorities told people in Brussels to stay where they were, bringing the city to a standstill. Airport security was also tightened in Paris, London and other European cities.
