Quebec actress has close call during Brussels attacks: ‘It was very spectacular’

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This article was published 22/03/2016 (3822 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRUSSELS – Quebec actress Salome Corbo was checking in at the Air Canada counter when the first blast rocked Brussels’ airport in Tuesday’s terror attacks that killed dozens in the Belgian capital.

In the ensuing chaos as she fled, Corbo says she came close to where the second explosion went off.

“It was very spectacular,” she told Cogeco Nouvelles. “I was right near the second blast. I heard the first one, quickly tried to get away and the second one was nearby, right near me. I’ve had this buzzing in my ear I can’t get rid of.”

The attacks at the city’s airport and subway together killed at least 31 people and wounded 187 others.

Corbo, one of many Canadians caught up in the maelstrom, said she immediately realized it was a terrorist attack.

“We’re in Europe and it took a fraction of a second to come to terms with what had happened. A first explosion, you move. A second, it’s obvious it’s that (an attack) and you hurry up.”

Ottawa native Thorfinn Stainforth said he was in a taxi approaching the terminal when his driver got a message from a dispatcher advising of a bomb alert at the airport. They kept going, but then emergency crews began arriving in droves and they pulled over as traffic snarled.

“We didn’t see any smoke, we didn’t see any panicked people, we just saw a lot of security cars and people everywhere,” said Stainforth.

“If we had been probably 10 minutes earlier we would have been exactly where the bombing was. From that sense I fell pretty shaken up, but pretty lucky.”

Canadian Michelle Betz, who flew in to the airport about an hour before the first bombing there, said she passed Maelbeek subway station, which was also attacked, in a cab en route to her hotel.

“So just missed that one as well, thank goodness,” she said.

Betz, who helps develop independent media around the world, said she found the experience “disconcerting” despite the fact that she often travels to conflict zones.

“I am kind of used to a certain amount of disarray and crazy things going on and expect that in most of the places I go to, but did not expect that here in Brussels at all,” she said.

The mayor of a Quebec town who was also in Brussels on Tuesday said he heard sirens of emergency vehicles blare for hours as the Belgian capital became a paralyzed city.

Drummondville Mayor Alexandre Cusson and a colleague were headed to the Belgian federal parliament for meetings.

“We were at the hotel around 8:30 a.m. when we were informed about what happened,” he told The Canadian Press.

“The area became very busy and we heard the sounds of sirens and emergency vehicles for hours. Since then the public transport system, trains, buses, metro and the airport — nothing has been working. People are waiting hours to get taxis. It’s a paralyzed city.”

Cusson said officials from Quebec’s government office in Brussels contacted them to make sure they were safe.

“They strongly suggested we stay at the hotel all day,” he said. “So all of our meetings today were cancelled.”

Michel Audet, Quebec’s delegate-general in Brussels, said his employees were on their way to the office when the attacks occurred.

“I had to do a head count and went about tracking down those who weren’t there,” he said in an interview.

Quebec’s delegation office is a short walk from Maelbeek station.

Audet said there will definitely be fallout from the attacks.

“Today, we’re in crisis-management mode, looking after victims and making sure people are OK but there will need to be psychological healing,” he said. “This is a major emotional shock for many people. They will have to learn to take public transit, the metro, again.”

Lee Rosky, of Halifax, athletic director at the International School of Brussels, has lived in the city with his wife and two children for three years.

“One of our alumni and a fairly prominent person in our community has actually become the poster boy for this thing,” he said. “He was pretty severely injured (at the airport) and his picture popped up fairly quickly, which kind of hit home fast.”

— With files from Magdaline Boutros in Montreal and Keith Doucette in Halifax