Excited celebrants, young and old, gathered at the Promenade des Anglais to watch fireworks light up the sky in celebration of Bastille Day in Nice, France.
Thunderous booms fused with the sounds of awe and laughter filled the joyous atmosphere a little after 10 pm on Thursday. Locals and non-locals alike were reveling in the gay occasion.
Even when the dazzling fireworks display ended 45 minutes later, some people were reluctant to leave. Others headed back towards the city.
Fatima Charrihi was amongst those who stayed to savor the last hour of Bastille Day. She was out celebrating with her husband, sons, nieces and nephews, according to The Irish Times.
On the other hand, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, was just starting his night when he got into his rented 19-ton white refrigerator truck. He then drove right into a traffic barrier before turning left onto the Promenade des Anglais, The Irish Times reported.
It also said the vehicle picked up speed on the clear road.
“I saw, behind the wheel, the driver was deciding which way he was heading,” a student said, according to The NY Post. “The truck rolled onto the pavement.”
At that moment, Bouhlel hit his first victim, Charrihi. Screams erupted, replacing the jubilant squeals.
“She was the first victim,” her son, Hazma, told L’Express. “There were no bodies before hers.”
She was killed instantly even though one of her sons tried to resuscitate her.
However, Bouhlel didn’t stop at Charrihi. He plowed into the crowds on the embankment.
Charrihi’s husband, Ahmed, was 50 meters away, when he saw the bodies flying “like rags,” The Irish times reported.
The lorry used in last night's attack in Nice is removed from the scene https://t.co/0W8GDhhCnY
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 15, 2016
Journalist Damien Allemand said the beach attendants were the first aids to arrive.
“They brought water for the injured and towels, which they placed on those for whom there was no more hope,” he wrote on his paper’s website.
Polina Serebryannikova, 22, a Russian student recalled the lorry suddenly swerving towards her and her friend, Viktoria Savchenko, 21, The Post reported.
“My friend and I were walking on the promenade,” Serebryannikova said to The Mirror. “We saw this truck moving in a strange trajectory.”
The driver rammed the truck right into them, instantly killing Savchenko. Meanwhile, Serebryannikova survived with some injuries.
Bouhlel continued his killing spree, zigzagging between the road and the pavement, in an apparent attempt to smash into as many innocent lives as possible.
“I’d say it was going about 25 to 30 miles an hour as it did so and just plummeting through,” Tony Molina of San Diego told CNN, according to The Post.
Richard Gutjahr, a German journalist, witnessed the tragedy unfold from a window. He saw a brave motorcyclist attempt to open the truck’s door but failed. Instead, he got swept under the wheel, according to The Irish Times.
Police and ambulances rushed to the scene.
A witness, Nader El Shaei, saw Bouhlel shooting at the officers.
“As we were passing a cop, he said ‘allez, allez vite,’ which means ‘go, quickly,’” Georgia Tech student, Brendan Phillips, told WXIA.
This new footage has emerged from the #NiceAttack last night https://t.co/bALTwh1Sdz
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 15, 2016
People started running and screaming through the streets, according to London lawyer Harjit Sarang, 42.
“It was just sheer panic and with the volume of people it was a crowd mentality,” she told The Mirror. “We just ran, we panicked, not even knowing in which direction our hotel was.”
A New York City woman, identified as Kat, was dining at Frog when a herd of people ran past it.
She told NBC over the phone that she went to the eatery after the fireworks display.
“People just started running down the street toward us,” she said. “Everyone from the street just flooded the restaurant.”
Frog, like all the other restaurants, shut their front gates and switched off the lights.
“Everyone was sitting on the floor, and we heard gunshots,” Kat said to NBC.
A Dallas woman, Kristen Crouch, also heard the gunshots when she was leaving a Bastille Day party, The Post reported.
It said she was walking back to her hotel with a group of friends when she heard “two pops.”
“I thought it was fireworks and didn’t think anything of it, but all of a sudden, all of these people were running in the opposite direction and speaking in French and screaming,” Crouch said.
So she ran with her friends back to the apartment that they just left from. Crouch marked herself “safe” using the Facebook Safety Check tool. It was the second time in six days that she used the feature. The first time was when Micah Xavier Johnson went on a shooting rampage back in her hometown.
According to The Post, Crouch said the truck was just right in front of her hotel.
Police fired shots at it when it slowed down near the Hotel Westminster to avoid hitting a pergola, according to The Irish Times.
It also said Gutjahr recalled the driver not stopping, while shots continuously fired off into the chaos.
“The truck sped up, accelerated and drove in a zigzag course into the crowd,” Gutjahr said.
The vehicle headed straight for the densest crowd at the Palais de la Méditerranée, killing about 30 people instantly, The Irish Times reported.
It also said a man jumped up on the lorry afterward and attempted to tackle Bouhlel, who fired out the window in return.
The driver then emerged from the truck and opened fire but a policewoman managed to kill him first, according to The Post.
Still, Bouhlel’s 1.2-mile rampage created enough damage to hurt the whole country.
Families were separated and loved ones were killed in the massacre. Empty strollers sat in the dark night.
Bloodied bodies were strewn all across the promenade.
Hotels and restaurants nearby were turned into field clinics, The Irish Times reported. Nice hospitals activated their emergency plans and rushed to treat those who could be saved. At the same time, they had to identify the victims.
Yet, Kat told NBC she noticed a “strange calm” while walking back to her AirBnB.
“Like people trying to act calm as they’re walking home, but they’re totally freaked and darting from one place to the other,” she said.
Bouhlel’s selfish act took 84 lives, 10 of those who are children and teenagers.
A total of 303 people were hospitalized that night, according to BBC. 121 victims remain in the hospital, including 30 children. In addition, 26 people, 5 of whom are children, are currently in intensive care.
SOS Nice was created as a social media platform to relay information regarding missing people.
