‘We thought that was it’, says Cork family caught up in Brussels attacks
Cúil Aodha native Niamh Jordan was at the Ryanair check-in desk with her husband Tony and three children, Sadhbh, 10, Lia, seven, and Naoise, four, when the bombs went off.
She said she thought ‘that was it’ when the second explosion ripped through the airport.
“We were second in line in the queue for the check-in, there was a Belgian family in front of us with children the same age as ours, when the first blast happened,” Ms Jordan told RTÉ Radió na Gaeltachta.
“There was total confusion, with smoke everywhere and people running. My husband and children threw themselves on the ground, as did the Belgian family. I was looking around and my husband said to me ‘get down get down get down’ so I threw myself on the ground,” she said.
“The children were crying. We were looking around trying to work out what had happened. Everyone around us was running towards the door. We stayed where we were, trying to get our bearings and to figure out what to do.
“Then the second blast went off. That was closer to us and the lights started falling from the ceiling and we thought that was it. But then after a few seconds everything stopped falling so we knew we were okay.
“The father of the Belgian family then got up and ran to the door to check if it was safe, and he came back and just said run run run so we grabbed the bags and passports and ran. When we came out, then, the police told us to go behind the Sheraton Hotel and to stay there,” Ms Jordan said.
Ms Jordan detailed the “total confusion” that reigned outside the airport as the authorities attempted to control the situation.
“There were police with guns and balaclavas running everywhere and they kept telling us to get back get back. There was total confusion, with ambulances and firebrigades coming and going. We had to stay there for two hours, and during that time we weren’t getting any information. Then we were told to go down to the gates of the airport and there was a bus there that brought us to a sports hall in Zaventem.
“The local people there were so helpful, bringing us anything to help — coffee, food, phone chargers, and they had wifi, and people could sort themselves out,” she said. The family is staying in a student apartment in Leuven, a town about 30 minutes from the airport, and hopes to get a flight home tomorrow night.
Peadar Ó Riada, who was travelling to Brussels with Cór Chúil Aodha choir as part of a delegation of musicians and artists from Ireland, told the same programme how their plane was delayed by 10 or 15 minutes, which meant they had not landed at the time of the bombings, although their plane had started its descent to the airport. They were instead diverted to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
