Witnesses describe Nice Bastille Day attack terror

The attack took place on the city's seaside promenade. The driver was shot dead and guns and grenades were found inside the lorry.

Eyewitnesses described the scenes of terror and panic as the tragedy unfolded.

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Damien Allemand, a journalist with the local newspaper Nice Matin, wrote he was right at the waterfront after the fireworks had finished when he heard a noise and cries.

"A fraction of a second later, an enormous white truck came along at a crazy speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people."

"I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route. Heard noises, cries that I will never forget."

Pictures on French media showed people running for their lives down the promenade, a famous palm-tree lined seaside boulevard.

Nice native Wassim Bouhlel told AP he saw the truck drive into the crowd. "There was carnage on the road," he said. "Bodies everywhere." He described how the driver got out of the truck with a gun and started shooting.

Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre described a horrific scene, with bodies of dead and injured along the roadway.

'Chaos'

Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said the lorry ran into the crowd on a "long trip" down the sidewalk at the beachfront near the city's Palais de la Mediterranee.

British tourist Kevin Harris was in a hotel overlooking the scene of the tragedy.

"I heard a lot of screaming and shouting," he said. "I came out onto my terrace and in front of me I could see lots of what appeared to be bodies lying on the road just outside of where I'm sitting now actually."

"The bodies are still there, covered in white sheets. And the scene is still carrying on, these poor people are lying on the road in front of us, they're lying on there and there's lots of police obviously around and ambulances, but it's a terrible, terrible scene."

Kayla Repan, a visitor from the US, was among the hundreds who had gathered to watch the celebrations and fireworks. "The whole city was running," she told AP. "I got extremely frightened and ran away from the promenade. It was chaos."

"It had been a normal evening and we were just walking around," Joel Fenster told the BBC. "Suddenly people started running, there were screams and police sirens and policemen shouting at us to evacuate."

"It was terrifying, especially because we didn't know what was going on. At the time we only had heard some kind of gunshots and we assumed that there were people running around with guns."

"There was a moment when we were running and then people were running towards us from that direction and some people were just sitting on the floor looking for some way to get out of the way"

"There were huge numbers of families. When we were crouching down behind a car, there was a mother with a young child and she was just trying to tell her young daughter that nothing's going on, that all is going to be fine."

'Police take over'

"I live 200 metres from the promenade and it took nearly 1:30hrs to get back to my flat because all the roads have been closed down." BBC producer Roy Calley said.

"The police have completely taken over the city, the promenade has now been closed down. Everybody was physically pushed away from the site and told to get back in no uncertain terms by the police.

"Because the promenade was closed down all of the traffic which is quite heavy in the city was rediverted. That means means a lot of the police cars and ambulances can't physically get to the promenade because the number of cars on the road."

(BBC)