Blood and panic as Brussels airport comes under attack

Victims lay in pools of blood, their limbs blown off, as the smoke cleared to reveal a scene of horror after twin explosions ripped through the main terminal at Brussels airport, witnesses said.

The normally bustling departure hall at Zaventem was wrecked by the morning rush-hour blasts, with part of the ceiling collapsing near the check-in desks and many of the huge plate glass windows blown out by the attack.

“A man shouted a few words in Arabic and then I heard a huge blast,” airport baggage security officer Alphonse Lyoura, who still had blood on his hands following the explosion, said.

He said there was another explosion about two minutes later.

“I helped at least six or seven wounded people. We took out some bodies that were not moving. It was total panic everywhere,” Mr Lyoura said.

“I saw people lying on the ground covered in blood who were not moving.”

“At least six or seven people’s legs were totally crushed. A lot of people lost limbs. One man had lost both legs and there was a policeman with a totally mangled leg.”

Emergency services said at least 11 people were killed in the blast and many others wounded.

The city was already on high alert after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris terror attacks in November that were claimed by the ISIS group.

Jean-Pierre Lebeau, a French passenger who had just arrived from Geneva, said: “We heard the explosion and felt the blast.”

He said he had seen many wounded and “blood in the elevator.”

“First we were kept together by the police, then they gave us the order to evacuate,” he said, recounting the shock on people’s faces and a smell seemingly of gunpowder at the scene.

An employee for the Swissport airport management company described how she looked after a child following the blasts.

“I heard the first explosion and I took a child in my arms and hid him under the counter. Then I gave him to a policeman,” the employee said without giving her name.

“There were injured people lying everywhere and some weren’t moving.”

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, a British journalist living in Brussels, said there had been “total confusion” at the airport, where she was having breakfast before a flight.

“Suddenly staff rushed in and said we have to leave,” she said.

“They rushed out and into the main terminal A departures building. Nobody knew what was going on.”

“It was total confusion, people were just standing around wondering what was happening.”

Another blast about half an hour after those at the airport hit the Brussels metro between the Maalbeek and Schuman stations in the EU quarter of Brussels, which is also home to major international organisations and companies. Around 20 people were killed, emergency services said.

AFP journalist Lachlan Carmichael was on the metro and described how his train was halted in the tunnel and then evacuated as it began to fill up with smoke.

A police officer told him: “There are wounded, there are dead, I do not know how many.”

Another AFP journalist, Cedric Simon, said the situation around the Maalbeek metro station was totally confused, with a cloud of smoke and dust settling over the road outside.

Simon said there were about 15 people lying on the roadside, many with bloodied faces and being treated by medical staff as all Brussels hospitals were put on standby to deal with casualties.