In the wake of yesterday’s atrocious terror attack in the French riviera town of Nice, that saw 84 people killed as they celebrated Bastille Day on the promenade, a number of Australian tourists in the area have spoken out about their experiences.
Melbourne couple Sasha and Danaë Goldsmith, who were watching the celebrations from their apartment balcony, immediately locked themselves inside, and told their two young children that the gunshots they heard were fireworks.
Speaking to Today this morning, Sasha explained “the truck came hurtling down the road and the music stopped and people scattered everywhere.” Danaë added:
“Once the music stopped we thought ‘what’s going on?’ so we looked down and all the people started scrambling and there was a whole lot of noise and I thought, ‘why is the truck there?’. It was just going through the crowd … there [were] no cars allowed on the Promenade because of the celebration so it was all a bit weird. Then I thought shit, everyone is running so I got the kids and we got down … there was just bang bang bang. We were down on the ground, we got down on the ground in the apartment.”
23-year-old Rhys Lawry, one of 27 Australian Students in Nice to attend a European Innovation Academy seminar, was on the beach when the attacks occurred, and told News Corp:
“We were there on the beach watching the fireworks and then suddenly everyone started running and there was a massive stampede. We heard screams, people screaming and everyone was running in one direction. We thought we’d better start running too and it just got faster and faster and you’ve just got this panic. There were just hundreds of people running and it became a massive stampede. The cops were yelling ‘Run! Run! Keep going!”
Yesterday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop revealed that three Australians suffered “minor injuries” while seeking to flee the scene, although none were among the casualties.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has reiterated its existing warnings to Australians in France, with the Smart Traveller website telling tourists to exercise “a high degree of caution” and monitor local media for safety risks.
Source: News Corp.
