“People were very nervous, everybody was running”

“Keren and I were about 150 meters away from the main hall [were the explosion happened]. We had just gone through the security zone, and I was trying to see on the screens what our boarding gate was.”

After being evacuated from the main airport building, Guillem Sampedro, member of an evangelical church in the area of Valencia (Spain) told Evangelical Focus via Whatsapp messages how he and his wife Keren Pitarch managed to leave the Brussels-Zaventem airport after the explosions on Tuesday morning.

“EVERYONE USING THE SAME ESCALATOR, IT WAS CHAOS”

Suddenly, “we heard a very big noise, everything trembled and dust fell from the roof of the building. After about 20 seconds, an avalanche started, people were running and yelling. We all went down to the floor below using the same escalator, it was chaos.”

“People were very tense, very nervous. Everybody was running. When we managed to arrive to the floor below, were the terminals are, everybody in the shops were also very nervous. We waited there for some time.”

“There were people saying: ‘a bomb, a bomb!’, but we did not know if it was true.”

The couple followed others going to the Terminal A of the airport, “on one of the laterals”, because airport workers told them to go there. “It’s a long hall, we went to the end of it.”

“WE DID NOT KNOW WHY WE WERE RUNNING”

Later, “a second avalanche, everybody was running again. We did not know why we were running.”

“We were fearful, because we heard people screaming, and some said they had seen people with submachine guns, although we did not see this.”

“About 20 minutes after the explosion, we were told through the sound systems, in English and later in French: ‘Emergency, everyone in the airport: general evacuation’”

EVACUATED THROUGH THE BOARDING GATES

Guillem and Keren finally left the building “through the gates 20-30. Many were evacuated through these doors.”

Once they were outside, they walked next to some airplanes which had “passengers still inside, they looked at us through the windows, they probably did not know what was happening.”

They were brought to “a parking zone, many ambulances were going through.”

BUSES TAKE PASSENGERS TO SAFE PLACES

Once the group of passengers were safe outside the airport building, they waited for more than 2 hours. “After about 30 minutes, they brought water for everyone”.

While Guillem was telling Evangelical Focus his testimony, “buses were arriving to take people” to a safer place. Families with children were the first ones to board the buses.

“They haven’t told us where we are going, and what will happen. Here we are now, waiting.” Although telephone calls were not possible, the internet data still worked.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS”

Some hours later, the couple had been brought to the nearby town of Zaventen.

From there, Sampedro tweeted: “Thank you for your prayers, we are fine, they are evacuating us. We are recovering and assimilating what we have lived. #Bruselas #PrayforBelgium”

Gracias a todos por las oraciones, estamos bien, nos están evacuando. Recuperándonos y asimilando lo vivido. #Bruselas #PrayforBelgium

— Guillem (@guillemsampedro) 22 de març de 2016