Bombs in Sharm El Sheikh

mark thorpe

Golden Master
Messages
7,366
im so freaked out by this, i was there about 2 weeks ago..... and it looks like the area that i was staying in too, im really worried about a couple of the dive instructors who are out there at the moment.....


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709491.stm

Dozens killed in Egyptian blasts
TV image from Sharm el-Sheikh
The explosions took place in the early hours of Saturday
At least 45 people have been killed and more than 130 wounded in a string of explosions in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, police said.

The first explosion took place in the Old Market area, popular with tourists.

Other blasts followed in the nearby area of Naama Bay, which is packed with hotels. Witnesses said a four-star hotel was heavily damaged.

Britons, Dutch, Qataris, Kuwaitis and Egyptians were among the casualties, police sources said.

Police sources said initial reports suggested there had been at least four and possibly seven car bombs.

The first blast, which took place shortly after 0100 local time (2200 GMT), shook windows some distance away, and smoke was seen rising over the area, residents said.

'Eerie calm'

The Naama Bay explosions followed about 15 minutes later, close to the Ghazala Gardens and Moevenpick hotels.

One witness, Fabio Besone, who was at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe, said there were scenes of panic, with people running to get away.

"There was shrapnel everywhere, the front of the hotel had been completely blown away, a couple of bodies lying down on the front of the road - I have no idea if they were alive or severely injured," he told the BBC.

Samantha Hardcastle, a British tourist, was having a drink on the terrace of the Naama Bay Hotel with her husband when they heard a loud explosion, followed by a second one a few minutes later.

"There's just an eerie sense of calm at the moment," she said.

"Just horrific, I've never been so scared in the whole of my life."

The Sharm el-Sheikh area is popular with tourists from Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Europe.

Last October, 34 people died in car and truck bombs at Red Sea resorts on the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula.


if i was out there, i would have been in the old market area, at the camel bar and hard rock cafe... which is apparently the area which was targeted.


holy cow this has freaked me out...........
 
Thank you wombat....

another news story from CNN

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Multiple explosions struck the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula early Saturday, targeting a hotel and killing at least 30 people, witnesses and police said.

Saturday's explosions at 1:15 a.m., when many tourists would have been asleep, shook windows a mile away. Smoke and fire rose from Naama Bay, a main strip of beach hotels in the desert city popular with Israeli and European tourists, witnesses said.

At least 30 people were killed and 107 wounded in at least three explosions in Naama Bay and the Old Market area nearby, an Interior Ministry official said.

Amal Mustafa, 28, an Egyptian who was visiting with her family, said she drove by the Ghazala Garden -- a 176-room four-star resort on the main tourist strip in Naama -- and it was "completely burned down, destroyed."

Khaled Sakran, a resident, said he saw one explosion from the Old Market. "I saw the fire in the sky," he told The Associated Press. "Right after, I saw a light in the sky and heard another explosion, coming from Naama Bay."

"The blast shook my house, I can see the fire and lots of smoke," Akram al-Sherif, a Jordanian who was staying at a summer house less than a mile away, said.

In October 2004 a series of explosions hit several hotels in the Sinai resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, about 100 miles northwest along the Gulf of Aqaba coast, killing 34 people. Egyptian authorities said that attack was linked to Israeli-Palestinian violence and launched a large wave of arrests in Sinai.

Thousands of tourists are drawn to Sharm for its sun, clear blue water, and coral reefs.

It also has been a meeting place where world leaders have tried to hammer out a Mideast peace agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met there in February and agreed to a cease-fire.
 
83 dead now.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709491.stm

Dozens killed in Egyptian blasts
Bombed building, Sharm al-Sheikh
The attacks happened at the height of the tourist season
At least 83 people have been killed and scores more wounded in bomb attacks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.

An explosion in the Old Market area was followed by two blasts in the Naama Bay area, where a car bomb tore off the front of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel.

Most of the dead are Egyptians, although foreign nationals are among the victims, officials said.

The attack - the worst in Egypt in recent history - comes months after 34 people died in an attack in Sinai.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visited the scene of the attacks and vowed to continue the "battle with terrorism".

His interior minister, Habib al-Adli, condemned what he called an "ugly act of terrorism" and said police were following leads.

Click here to see a map of the attacks

"We have some clues, especially about the car that was exploded in the Old Market, and investigators are pursuing," Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to neighbouring Israel, denounced "the horrific terrorist bombings". She vowed that Egypt and the US "will confront and defeat this scourge that knows no boundary and respects no creed".

'Rammed hotel'

The blasts came within minutes of each other, shortly after 0100 local time (2200 GMT), when the bars and markets were busy with tourists.

This flaming mass flew over my head, faster than a torpedo
Mursi Gaber
Eyewitness

Tourists targeted
In pictures: Egypt blasts

In the most devastating attack, a bomber rammed his car into Ghazala Gardens Hotel, according to an eyewitness.

"A suicide car bomber forced the barrier at the entrance of the hotel. A member of the security staff tried to stop him but he sped towards the reception and there was a huge explosion," an unnamed hotel employee told AFP news agency.

Parts of the front walls of the hotel collapsed, trapping people under the rubble.

A few hundred metres away, a bomb went off in a car park near the Moevenpick Hotel and popular nightlife spots, causing widespread damage and casualties.

In the Old Market area blast, about four kilometres (2.5 miles) away, 17 people - believed to be Egyptian workers - were killed as they gathered at a street cafe, rescue officials said.

We heard a huge bang and saw a gust of black smoke over Old Sharm
Lisa Keany

Blasts: Were you there?
Holidaymakers' horror

"This flaming mass flew over my head, faster than a torpedo and plunged into the water," Mursi Gaber, who was working on a nearby beach when the blast happened, told AP.

"There were body parts all over the steps down to the beach."

Sabina Salvatore, an Italian diving instructor, was on a boat at the time of the blasts.

"Suddenly we looked at Old Sharm and we saw this fire coming up and after this fire some sounds... an explosion and then more fire and everything was shaking," she told the BBC News website.

"After this bomb, silence, then a lot of people screaming."

'Mass hysteria'

Witnesses said there was pandemonium as dazed and shocked tourists fled to safety.

"We went outside on to the street where we were met with hundreds of people running and screaming in all directions," British tourist, Fabio Basone, told the BBC.

British policeman Charlie Ives was in a cafe about 50 metres (160ft) away from where two explosions went off.

"The whole area was quickly covered in debris. There was a huge ball of smoke that mushroomed up. It was mass hysteria," he told the BBC.

Speaking after touring the bomb sites, President Mubarak said the "cowardly, criminal act" would "only increase our determination in chasing terrorism, cornering it and uprooting it".

"Our battle with terrorism will continue with all the strength, resolve and will that we have," he added.

Tourism fears

In a statement posted on an Islamic website, a group calling itself the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, al-Qaeda, in Syria and Egypt, said it carried out the bombings, the AP news agency reported, although the claim has not been verified.

The bombings happened at the height of the summer tourist season in Sharm al-Sheikh, and coincided with an extended holiday weekend to mark the anniversary of the 1952 Egyptian revolution.

It was the first such attack since last October, when 34 people died in car and truck bomb attacks at Red Sea resorts on the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula.

The previous worst attack in Egypt occurred in 1997, when Islamic militants killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians near the southern city of Luxor.

Tourism is Egypt's most lucrative industry, worth about $6.6bn a year.

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Mark,
When I first heard about this on the news, I thought about your just being there. I hope that any friends that you may have there turn out to be ok.
 
Thanks, i hope they are okay...

im pretty freaked out about it... if they had decided to do it 2 weeks earlier, i would have been in the old town at the time of the bombings...
 
yeah, when I heard about it on the radio I thought that you'd been there, its a dangerous world now
 
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