Brussels Rocked by Deadly Attacks With Blasts at Airport, Subway

Bloomberg
By James G Neuger and  Jonathan Stearns

Explosions ripped through the Brussels airport departure hall and a downtown subway station on Tuesday morning, causing deaths and injuries and spurring fears of imminent follow-up attacks in the capital of the European Union.
Belgium’s military sent reinforcements to Brussels after two bombs went off in rapid succession at the airport around 8 a.m., the peak check-in hour for morning flights within Europe. RTL news reported as many as 13 dead and 25 injured. An hour later, an explosion hit a subway station a short walk from EU headquarters, with conflicting reports of casualties.



Belgium raised its security alert to the highest level and police combed the airport for booby-trapped packages. VRT news said a third bomb was discovered. Prime Minister Charles Michel convened national security advisers and said the incidents are being treated as possible terrorist attacks.
“For now, we’re asking the population to stay where they are,” Michel said in a Twitter posting. Officials urged people to communicate via social media to avoid putting excess strain on already overloaded mobile phone networks.
Paris Attacks
Some schools, train stations and other public sites were evacuated and emergency services struggled to cope with what appeared to be a coordinated attack along the lines of the November mass murders at multiple locations in Paris.

Security was tightened at airports across Europe and French newspaper Liberation reported that the border between France and Belgium was closed.
The explosions occurred four days after Belgian police captured Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the only surviving perpetrator of the Paris massacres. The four-month manhunt had been accompanied by criticism that Belgium was too late to recognize the jihadist threat in some poorer Brussels neighborhoods.
Panicked Travelers
Access roads and rail lines were halted to the airport, in the suburb of Zaventem, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from central Brussels. The airport was shut for the day and incoming flights were diverted to other Belgian airports.

Panicked travelers were shown fleeing past the departure hall’s blown-out windows and through the rubble of ceiling tiles in television images. “Soldiers are pushing us back, people are running in every direction,” a witness named David told RTL television.
Prosecutors said one of the airport attacks was a suicide bomber, Le Figaro reported.
Subway Smoke
Smoke poured out of the Maelbeek metro station, one stop from the main offices of the European Commission. At least two seriously injured, soot-covered people were seen taken out on stretchers and wailing passengers fled as police cordoned off the station.
“I heard the explosion,” said Frederick Willis, a Ghana native who got off the metro after dropping his son off at school. “It was very loud. I am looking for a place to hide.”
The Brussels subway network was shut down. Belgian army trucks sealed off the area near the prime minister’s office. The commission told staff in the building to stay put and others not to come in; a European Parliament hearing with the EU’s top banking regulator went on as scheduled.