THERE WAS A LOUD bang, screaming children ran for the exits in panic and there were “bodies everywhere” in the immediate aftermath of the attack at the Ariana Grande gig in Manchester.
Screaming fans, many of them teens, fled the venue in panic after the suspected bomb blast in the foyer area at the end of the concert last night.
Greater Manchester Police have confirmed that children are among the 22 people killed in the blast. They said that the attacker had also died in the explosion.
Eyewitnesses described the incident as one of terror and panic.
“There was heat on my neck and when I looked up there were bodies everywhere”, Elena Semino, who was waiting for her 17-year-old daughter, told the Guardian.
Semino, who was herself injured, said she had been standing by the ticket office of the 21,000-capacity indoor Manchester Arena when the explosion went off at the end of the concert.
“A huge bomb-like bang went off that hugely panicked everyone and we were all trying to flee the arena”, said Majid Khan, 22, who was at the show with his sister.
Ambulances and bomb disposal teams rushed to the venue, as family members frantically searched for their loved ones, and residents opened their doors to stranded concert-goers after trains were cancelled.
One witness, Gary Walker, told BBC Radio 5 Live he was hit by shrapnel in his foot and his wife sustained a stomach wound as they waited for their daughters.
“We heard the last song go and then suddenly there was a massive flash and then a bang and smoke,” he said.
Isabel Hodgins, an actress who had been at the concert, told Sky News:
Everybody was panicking, there was pushing up the stairs.
“The corridor was full, it smelled of burning, there was quite a lot of smoke as we were leaving,” he said.
“It’s just shocking and we just feel very shaken up. We’re just lucky to have gotten away safely,” she said.
Calvin Welsford, 18, from Bristol told the BBC: “It almost sounded like a gunshot”.
“I looked around and people were just spilling down, heading out of the building,” he said.
I was actually having an asthma attack. It was sheer panic.
© – AFP 2017 With reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald
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