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[OM] Reporting from the frontline: "warzone Enschede"...

Subject: [OM] Reporting from the frontline: "warzone Enschede"...
From: "Greve, Olaf (Olaf)" <ogreve@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 11:48:55 +0200
Hi,

I'm sending this message to about everyone I know who is on my e-mail
contacts list, as there is a major update to be told which has made its way
well into the European press, and possibly also across the oceans (not sure
about that). Bottomline: Gioconda, Karol, and I are fine, as are my family
members, and my house.

So, what has happened then, you ask?
Well, last Saturday started off quietly. It was a nice and sunny day and I
only had an appointment at the hairdresser in Oldenzaal at noon. As it was a
nice day, I decided to go by bicycle and to go shopping for a mother's day
present after that. So, I went to Oldenzaal and considered visiting my
parents for an hour or 2. However, as my parents live on the other side of
Oldenzaal and I still needed to find 2 presents, I decided against doing
that, and returned to Enschede straight after having gone to the hairdresser
(NOTE: for those of you who didn't know this yet, I now live in Enschede and
work for Lucent Technologies (new e-mail address: ogreve@xxxxxxxxxx)).

Around 1 P.M. I entered Enschede again, and I went to a place where a lot of
furniture shops are located, as I knew there was a cabinet there that is
much to Gioconda's liking. To do this most efficiently, I went straight over
a street called "Laaressingel" and passed a museum which is located in a
really pretty old -but well maintained- building, and of which I thought
"Gee, I should take some pictures of this building". Nevertheless, with a
"mission" ahead, I continued along my way to the shops. Along the way,
without taking notice of it, I crossed a certain street called
"Tollenstraat". This sounds insignificant now, maybe, but it will all become
clear in a little bit.

2 'o clock P.M. came, and I had managed to "secure" Gioconda's present, so I
proceeded to the centre of Enschede to find a present for my own mother.
Around 2:30 or so, my mission was about completed, having in my possession a
hair-curler, so I went home, to work a bit on my computer.

Around 2:50 P.M. I arrived at home, opened most of the windows, and went
upstairs. At around 3 'o clock I heard several fire engines passing by with
screaming engines (as had been the case already 3 or 4 times over the course
of one week). They passed by over one of the main streets of Enschede (i.e.
"Oliemolensingel"), which is right next to my house. I didn't pay particular
attention to it, made some coffee, and went upstair again. I was working for
some 10 minutes, when I went down to pour myself a cup of coffee. I went up
(around 3:10 P.M.), and set the coffee next to the computer to let it cool
down, so I could drink it. But... I never got around to drinking it...

At about 3:20 P.M. there all of a sudden was this very loud "popping" sound,
the whole house was shaking and I felt a shockwave shooting through the
house. I put one and one together, and knew that wherever the fire brigade
was going, something massive must have exploded. The sound/effect of the
explosion was comparable to what you experience when a jet plane breaks
through the sound barrier (a thing which the shockwave of the explosion
effectively does!), but it was so much stronger than what I had ever
experienced in such an occassion. I looked out through the window which is
located on the south side of the house, as somehow the explosion appeared to
have taken place there. I didn't see anything. A bit surprised, I went up on
the attic, to look out of the windows over there. Again I opened a window on
the south side and looked out of it. Nothing. The all of a sudden a second
shockwave came thundering through the house. The sound of this second
explosion was much stronger than the first one, and the whole house again,
was shaking like a leave in the wind. The window escaped from my grasp but
did not break. This was a scray situation as it was clear that the
explosions were not far away, and who knows what to expect next? I went out
of the room on the attic, and noticed from the corner of my eyes that there
was this big black cloud on the north side of the house. I stood a second or
two in awe, when it dawned upon me that the explosion was on the other side
than where I had expected it to be. I quickly ran down the stairs, and
grabbed my photo bag [for the Olympus list members: it contained my
light-weight action pack; the OM-4Ti + 28/2 + 100/2 + T32]. When I came
down, I noticed the curtain rail and the curtains in the kitchen had been
blown off the wall and had fallen down. I very quickly put them up (in a bad
way) and hurried outside. 

Sure enough the big black cloud was still there, it was massive and I wanted
to get a better view. So, I went in the direction of the explosion and soon
learned that there was this big mushroom like cloud (not to the extremes as
the ones seen in a nuclear explosion of course!) "standing" right above a
rural area of the city! I shot several pictures, spoke to some people, and
saw some pieces of fireworks flying up into the thick black cloud. I wanted
to get a better view, and as people where moving towards the area of the
explosion, I too followed in their wake. Of course this was a very stupid
thing to do, but somehow it is what I automatically did. I got closer and
started to get my first view of the destruction the blasts had caused, at
some 50 - 100 metres distance from my house several windows were already
shattered. I proceeded to "Oldenzaalsestraat" and noticed how whole shop
windows had been completely blown away. There was glass everywhere and
several pieces of concrete were laying on the street, on cars, and in shops.
I still could not see "ground zero" (i.e. the area the actual detonation
took place) and proceeded further. Crying people, in a state of shock,
started to make their appearance in the picture over there. Everyone was
using their mobile to see if people were o.k., and hardly any firefighters
were at the scene yet. I went a street further and came across the museum
building I had seen in full glory only some 2.5 hours before the blast. It
was destroyed! The windows were all shattered, pieces of the roof were lying
on the street, and whole parts from the side of the building had been blown
out, it was a mess! Now I started to get really near the area where the
detonation had taken place.

I proceeded even further, and came upon a street which was right next to the
storage area where there once was a... fireworks storage place, in the
middle of rural area!!! Over here the destruction was really bad, whole
fronts of house were dislocated, the street was one big collection of glass,
huge pieces of armoured concrete were pierced straight into the street, the
house, the cars, into everything. This was about 50 metres away from where
the explosions had taken place. I went a bit further still into a street on
the left (leading right up to "Tollenstraat" where I had only passed some
2.5 hours earlier!) over here the damage was complete. Even more severely
so, houses were wrecked, some people were walking bere-feeted through the
glass, in shock. From this street I could see whole house-block on fire,
everything was on flames, and some fireworks were still going up. I did take
pictures, and I was over there for some 5 more minutes. There was no further
proceeding, as there were no streets left to go into: it was like a warzone.
Strangely enough, in the street I was standing, only a few wounded people
were over there, just a few that had some glass-cuts, nothing that seemed to
seriously. Unfortunately, it was imminent that the people who once lived in
the streets that have now been completely leveled, and which were burning to
a crisp when I was near there, were not quite so fortunate. An early arrived
firefighter (probably one of the ones who were there to put out the initial
fire) came chasing us away. It was for the better as there were still small
explosions of firework to be heard. I made my way back, carrying my bicycle
over the glass-overladen streets, and noticed several huge pieces of steel
container lying all over the place.

I then went back into the city centre (also over there there was glass
everywhere), to see if I could maybe find a newspaper headquarters to gice
them my rolls of film, but I did not succeed in finding one. Upon returning
towards my house, I came across Gioconda and Karol on the streets. They had
gone swimming in a swimming pool in the other side of Enschede (I knew this,
so I needn't fear for their safety), and had "just" found out about the
location of the blast then (this was something like 4:30 P.M.) although they
did hear and feel the blasts of course. We quickly went back a bit to where
I had gone before, but we were stopped by the fire brigade, who urged us to
leave. We complied (not wanting to obstruct them) and left.

Upon coming home again we turned on the television, waiting for special
editions to be broadcasted. These editions were to come, but just some 10
minutes before that (5:50 P.M.) there was talk of the big Grolsch brewery
being on fire. This may not sound too bad, but when you consider the size of
the tanks that could potentially explode (we also found out later that there
was a 6,000 liter tank of ammonia right next to the fire), yielding far
greater explosions than the ones caused by the fireworks detonation, we
decided to get the h*ll out of there. We took out bicycles and just went
straight into the opposite direction of the blast. Well out of th city we
watched the news in a cantine on a campground, and at around 8:00 P.M. we
heard that there was no risk anymore of anyhting exploding at the Grolsch
brewery, so after the news we went home, still seeing the thick smoke above
the city.

At home, we watched reports about the disaster until around midnight. It was
terrible, at least 20 people died (confirmed), some 520 were injured, of
which 11 were still on intensive care, and a further 200 people are still
missing when I am writing this, so not much good is to be expected for them
either... The pictures of the streets right next to one I was in (i.e. the
ones which I couldn't go into because _everything_ was one blaze of fire
there) were terrible. Whole houses (some 200 in total) have almost
completely dissappeared, cars were completely burnt to crisp, and it made me
think of the pictures we always see of the German cities at the end of World
War II. Apart from some walls nothing was standing anymore. We checked on
the map just how far this had happened from our house, and it turns out the
distance is only (roughly) 1 KM!!!

During the whole afternoon and evening help came from all over the country,
and also very noticeably so, from Germany. There were firefighter,
ambulances, police cars, and rescue helicopters coming from as far as
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the south of the country, and Germany (Germany is
actually rather nearby to Enschede, but still it's great to see them help us
to this extent!). The city was -and still is- a big mess. The whole blast
area has been sealed off hermetically (starting very near to the place I
live) to prevent the so called "disaster turism", and even now one still
can't enter the area. The damage must be tremendous, and it will be a long
time before that area will look remotely close to what it looked like only
three days ago...

I do hope the losses remain as small as possible, of course, but not a lot
of good is to be expected. On Sunday morning the queen and the prime
minister (i.e. the "premier") came to inspect the scene. They looked shocked
too. I tried to anticipate where they would pass if they were to come by
car, and I tried to get a glimpse of them. I didn't get to see them though,
as apparently they had come in by airplane, and hence must have entered the
city on the other side...

Today I shall bring the pictures to the store to have them developed, and I
hope to have them this Wednesday. I will try to find the time to scan some
of them this weekend and put them up on a special webpage (don't worry, I
didn't seek out any blood and guts - and even if I would have seen that I
would have been respectful enough not to take pictures of that). If/when I
manage to get that done, I shall send the URL around...

For now, Enschede is licking its wounds, and "normal life" is gradually
starting up again. If anything special happens, I will inform you guys
further. There are several people on the recipients list that live in
Enschede too, please help me hope that they are all fine, and their family
too!

Cheers!
Olaf




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Olaf Greve                              Lucent Technologies
Advanced Software Engineer              Bell Labs (R&D Centre Twente)
ogreve@xxxxxxxxxx                       Capitool 5
Direct lines:   +31-(0)53-4845706       7521 PL Enschede
                +31-(0)35-6875706       The Netherlands
Personal e-mail: ogreve@xxxxxxxxxxx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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