Bulgaria bombing survivors describe carnage

Passengers jump out of bus windows to escape; "People were thrown into the air. Everyone was shouting, crying," woman recalls.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Smoke in Bulgaria bombing 390 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Smoke in Bulgaria bombing 390
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Survivors of the Bulgaria bus bombing described horrific scenes of carnage and chaos on Wednesday.
The witnesses said the explosion began at the front of the bus, sending fire and destruction down through the vehicle.
One young woman, Gal Malka, who flew to Bulgaria on a vacation before being drafted into the IDF, told Channel two by phone from the scene, “We got on the bus. There were a lot of people on it... Suddenly someone got on there, and something exploded. We heard a boom. And we actually saw body parts. We tried to escape. The door was closed. But there was a hole in the side, through which me and my friend escaped.”
Malksa said there were bodies all around her, and that many people were screaming. She said she bandaged a man who was suffering heavy bleeding from his head.
After the earth-shattering blast, “I opened my eyes and saw that everything around me was fire,” Malka later told Ynet.
Shimon Avraham, a Jerusalem resident, told Channel 10 news that security forces arrived on the scene within 10 minutes of the explosion.
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A man named Ben told Channel 2 that he had been sitting in the back of the bus with his mother when it was rocked by a huge explosion. “The bus went up in flames, people were screaming and we jumped out of the window,” he said.
Shoshi Eiler, who boarded a bus next to the one that was attacked, told Ynet that after the blast, “people ran in hysteria and escaped toward the [airport] terminal.
Eiler landed at the Bulgarian resort city with her son, and said they had just picked up luggage and boarded their bus when the bomb went off. “As soon as we saw the bus explode, we immediately got off our bus and we also ran toward the terminal,” she said.
She later heard that passengers on the burning bus jumped out of the windows to escape.