Brussels attacks: ‘There were officials pushing everyone’

A Galway man has described the “surreal” evacuation of Brussels Airport yesterday morning, and said the panic caused by the explosions resulted in a stampede as people tried to escape the departure gates.

Law student, Luke Mac an Bháird, said he was waiting to board a flight at his gate when the bombs went off.

“At ten past eight there were officials pushing everyone telling people to run to the bottom of their gate,” Mr Mac an Bháird told The Anton Savage Show on Today FM.

“I was at Gate C when it happened, I was listening to music so I didn’t actually hear the explosion itself occur, but there was a lot of panic, there was people running with their children and it was like a mass of people at once just running to the bottom of the gate because they were saying there was another bomb or something like that was going to explode.

“There was a lot of panic. When they were moving us from the gate to the tarmac on the runway there were hundreds of people queued up to walk down the tunnel, as if you’re going onto the plane except they were going out through an exit door.

“People started screaming and started to run again. I think people got very scared and worried and there was a bit of a stampede towards the tarmac, but everyone got out in the end.”

Mr Mac an Bháird said the crowd waited for around 15 minutes until buses arrived to bring them away from the terminal to a crisis centre on some distance away.

“There was a lot of hysteria,” he said.

“It was very surreal, it was like everything was going in slow motion for the first 10 seconds, because you don’t imagine that happening to yourself.”

Mr Mac an Bháird said that security in Brussels has visibly increased since last November.