An Australian journalist caught up in the deadly Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, has captured incredible footage of terrified people huddling together in a restaurant store room as chaos reins outside.
The video was posted to Twitter by UTV Ireland producer Ben Terry, who took shelter in the restaurant after hearing gunshots near the Promenade des Anglais.
Crammed into the crowded space, Terry began filming on his mobile phone. The shaky footage shows two women crouched on the floor clinging to each other, fearful expressions on their faces. Someone calls for the door to be closed, while others plead with the group to stay quiet.
At least 80 are dead and more than 20 critical, with dozens more injured after a truck travelling 60-70km per hour plowed into crowds gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks, before the driver climbed out and opened fire on those nearby.
“It was a scene of mass panic like I haven’t really seen before,” Terry told UTV.
“We were actually enjoying the fireworks display on Promenade des Anglais and we just turned off the street and two seconds later we saw people running towards us.
“We heard several gunshots, of course we had no idea where they were coming from, but after the Paris attack and we what saw in Brussels recently there was a sense of tension and we ran with the crowd.”
Image: Ben Terry.
He continued: “We managed to run up the side ally into a resultant and we quickly ran into a store room there and were huddled up with a bunch of other people. Several of them were crying, some were trying to call their family and more and more people were running in.
“A few of them looked to be injured, possibly just injuries they received while trying to get away from scene, but the sense of panic was everywhere.”
Meanwhile, other personal accounts are emerging via social media as authorities work to make sense of the chaos and carnage that unfolded in the city overnight.
A French-born editor at The Guardian US shared her family's heartbreaking experience on Twitter, saying "I have family in Nice and when they tried to go home in the chaos the kid apparently said 'Mommy let's not take the bus in case it explodes'."
"So this is what terror does to children. Heartbreaking," she continued.
A London-based lawyer described on Twitter being left "terrified" and "shaking" after being forced to flee the scene with her boys.
"Running through crowds in Nice with kids and terrified," Harjit Sarang, 42, tweeted. "Never taking kids to a public event again. Finally back to hotel. Hate this."
British woman Esther Serwah told The Telegraph UK the horror of seeing people scramble over the bodies of people killed and injured.
"I was just walking to the Promenade and then I saw everybody running and I just didn't know what was going on. People were screaming at me in French but I didn't understand.
"Some people were lying on the streets dead and people were running over the bodies. Everybody was saying it's a terrorist attack. It's just horrible, horrible, horrible. I'm in shock. I'm still shaking."
A number of Australians were present during the attacks, reporting to local media about what they saw unfold.
Among them, ABC News 24 producer David Coady who described the promenade being packed with families celebrating and watching fireworks.
"I looked towards a truck and I thought it was out of place, was among the crowd, and then I started hearing screaming and so I turned and started to run with the crowd away from the screaming," he said according to ABC.
"There was a lot of panic at the time, I was running past restaurants where people had got up and left their meals.
"People were trying to get into hotels, any businesses that were open, trying to take shelter because it was unclear what was happening and with each bang that we heard behind us, people perhaps started to go a bit faster, people were tripping over, it was a very chaotic scene.
"Of course France is very tense at the time, still in the state of emergency after last year's terror attacks in Paris. There's a lot of security around but on the promenade itself there wasn't any particular cordon."
Top Comments
It just doesn't make sense to allow immigrants who are resentful of the West into the West. Plenty of immigrants are not resentful and it works well with them. We also need to challenge the narrative of scapegoating the West for everything. A lot of us perpetuate it ourselves. This mindset grows into violence and it excuses the corruption, criminality and failures we bear no responsibility for.
It also doesn't make sense to claim Islamic terrorism for everything. It seems that this guy wasn't very religious.
Yeah of course, he was yelling religious slogans when he was mowing those innocent people (including children) down. Always another excuse. They are either mentally ill or (insert other excuses here). I don't see too many mentally ill, lone wolf Christians, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists involved in these large scale attacks.
Yes it doesn't sound like he was very religious but I did read he shouted Allah Akbar and obviously his cultural heritage was Islamic. I also wonder what support he had since he had prohibited weapons. But I guess the point I am making is it's this narrative of resentment towards westerners that is resulting in violence like this more than faith.
The French police have arrested 4 other men in connection with this incident. Nice is home to a hotbed of Islamic extremism with a large number of Muslim men pushing off to Syria to join ISL.
I have no problems with Muslim people, Muslim populations have happily lived in Australia for a very long time. I am concerned about violent people and the propaganda and systems that allow it to happen. There is too much time spent on whether some one is home grown, lone wolf, second generation etc. we have witnessed organised crime gangs recruiting people, training people, operating across continents. They are slick and efficient in using the media to keep up the propaganda. I'm saw the documentaries of a woman and man infiltrating extremists groups, UK and France, respectively. It was clear that these people are using religion as a cover for operating and getting sympathy. I think there are 4 things that are repeated in the media and social media that are part of the problem: 1) Muslims are peaceful 2) Muslims are the real victims 3) islamaphobia 4) disallusionment/Syria is the reason for the violence. We are all human and it is not fair to say hundreds of millions of people are peaceful just because they are from a religious group; it also reflects poorly on others because the inference is that non-Muslims are not peaceful. In regards to victim narrative, it seeks to take attention away from terrorist victims and start defending all Muslims. Islamaphobia is again used to promote All Muslims as victims and no critique of anyone's behaviour is allowed, it is shutting down dissent. Syria or Iraq is no justification for people choosing violence towards innocent people. I hope people chose to be kind, help others, live peacefully and be allowed to question what the hell is really going on so we can stop it.