‘People were shouting ‘bomb! bomb!’ and ‘run! run!’’

Laurence Cameron, a journalist with British TV company Intrepid, was travelling through Istanbul airport to the Turkish city of Izmir when the bombs went off on Tuesday night. This is his account of the panic and devastation.

We had landed normally. Seatbelt signs went off and we started getting off the plane. I didn’t even hear the bombs or gunfire.

But as I walked up the bridge to the airport, I heard the sound of panic. I kept going anyway, I wasn’t really thinking, and as I turned the corner into the main tunnel I saw a wave of people racing towards me in complete terror, babies screaming, an old man in a wheelchair stranded in the middle of the crowd. He had lost his friends.

People were shouting: “Bomb! bomb!” and “Run! run!” but there isn’t anywhere to run except back to the gates that you came from, so people were funnelled back towards the planes.

I kept on going towards the visa desks, but they were all deserted except for police patrolling with guns who ordered me back.

Eventually, after about 20 minutes without any more explosions, they opened up all the visa desks and everyone headed to the exit, because it seemed like the only way out and it was still a very frightening situation, no one telling us what was going on.

There was an incredible crowd, pushing and terrified, by the visa gates, crushing down the escalators. They were still checking passports, and all the visa counters were manned so people were streaming through.

On the other side, in the baggage area, you could see where the bomb had gone off. There was dust everywhere, ceiling panels on the floor, shattered glass, blood and big piles of dusty luggage that had obviously been abandoned by people trying to escape.

You do think “Shit, if our plane had landed half an hour earlier, that could have been my bag sitting there.” I saw a chap with a bloodied arm, and someone with a rag on his head, but nothing catastrophic. The worst injured people had probably been taken to hospital already.

Bloody rags

Armed police had formed a shoulder-to-shoulder corridor through arrivals area, so we couldn’t see the worst of the damage, and they were hustling everyone out of the building as fast as possible, dragging anyone who was lingering.

As we came out, we saw the impact of an even bigger bomb on our left, by the start of the taxi rank. There was blood smeared on the floor, sirens, at least seven ambulances. Panels at the side of the building had been blown off; the walls were shredded.

The police kept pushing us along, until the cordon ended at a multi-storey car park, where they just left us in chaos.

There were bloody rags on the floor. Lots of people were crying, arguing with police, trying to go back, I guess, because there were relatives or friends they had been separated from, shouting and pointing inside; so many languages.

I stopped to have a cigarette on the floor with a Turkish woman, who was very kind and checked I had somewhere to go. But there was no official help, just sometimes the police would come through and tell us to keep going.

Everyone had to walk, half a kilometre or so through this car park that was quite eerie because it was full of cars, but none were moving. We went down to the entrance, where there is a huge neon sign saying: “Welcome to Atatürk.”

There was a shield of riot police by that gate, with media and desperate relatives outside. Once you went through, that was it. I walked 500 yards down the road, got a taxi and asked them to take me to the nearest hotel.

It was a bit bizarre, because when you go to a war zone, you are in the mentality that these things happen, but I wasn’t expecting it in Istanbul.

I'd had a relaxed flight, a couple of whiskey and cokes, watched The Great Gatsby and then suddenly this. It wasn't really fear, more an inversion of reality of what an airport should be like.

Guardian service