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Truck Plows Into Crowd in Nice, France Scores Reported Dead in Nice, France, as Truck Plows Into Bastille Day Crowd
(about 1 hour later)
PARIS — A truck plowed into a large crowd watching the annual Bastille Day fireworks on the promenade in Nice, France, on Thursday night, and witnesses reported hearing gunshots. PARIS — A Bastille Day fireworks celebration was shattered by death and mayhem Thursday night in France’s southern city of Nice when a large truck barreled through an enormous crowd of spectators, crushing and maiming dozens — eight months after the Paris attacks that traumatized the nation and all of Europe.
Christian Estrosi, the deputy mayor of Nice, said that more than 70 people had been killed. “The truck was full of weapons and grenades,” Mr. Estrosi said on French television. It was not clear what motivated the driver to veer into the crowd. Officials and witnesses in Nice said at least 77 people were killed by the driver of the rampaging truck, who was shot to death by the police as officers scrambled to respond on what is France’s most important annual holiday. Graphic television and video images showed the truck accelerating and tearing through the crowd, and the bullet-riddled windshield of the vehicle, which the mayor described as full of weapons and grenades.
Officials asked people to stay indoors. Officials did not immediately classify the Nice killings as terrorism, but members of the Paris Prosecutor’s antiterrorism office quickly took over the investigation of what happened, and they warned residents to stay indoors.
Conflicting accounts of the deaths and injuries emerged from multiple sources after the episode, with many reporting high numbers of casualties. “There are numerous victims,” said Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, on BFM Television. “It’s a tragic, exceptional situation.”
The sub-prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, Sébastien Humbert, told the French network BFMTV: “There are several dozen dead. The total is very high, thirty dead. Maybe 100 wounded. There was a truck that drove into the crowd, over a very long distance. There were shots. The driver was shot. This is on a big scale.” Witnesses described scenes of pandemonium, with conflicting accounts on social media, including a false report of hostage-taking in Nice, a seaside city of 340,000.
Daphne Burandé, 15, who was at a bar near the beach to watch the fireworks, said: “We were enjoying the celebrations when we suddenly saw people running everywhere and tables being pushed down by the movement of panic.” “We were enjoying the celebrations when we suddenly saw people running everywhere and tables being pushed down by the movement of panic,” said Daphne Burandé, 15, who was at a bar near the beach to watch the fireworks.
“No one explained to us what was happening and I heard some gunshots not very far away,” she said. “I waited at the bar for more information because I thought it was a false alert. But then, people were still running.” “No one explained to us what was happening, and I heard some gunshots not very far away,” she said. “I waited at the bar for more information because I thought it was a false alert. But then, people were still running.”
France has been on alert for a terrorist attack for months, and officials have warned repeatedly that another attack is likely. Last November, attacks in and around Paris killed 130 people. The Nice killings came hours after President François Hollande of France proclaimed that the state of emergency imposed since the Paris attacks last November would be lifted July 26. There was no claim of responsibility, and the identity of the driver was not immediately clear, but the attack amounted to a gut-punch to a nation that was struggling to restore some sense of normalcy.
On Twitter, a woman who said her terrace overlooked the promenade where the episode unfolded reported hearing gunfire. France began to drop its guard, and a massive white truck came crashing through.
Several witnesses spoke on iTele, a French television station. A man who gave his name as Michel, working at the Voilier Plage restaurant in front of the Promenade des Anglais, said that around 10:30 pm a large white truck drove into a crowd that had gathered near the beach to watch Bastille Day fireworks, apparently killing dozens of people. “A huge number of people started running, then there was a lot of gunfire,” he said. The police arrived on the scene and engaged in a shootout with the two occupants of the truck. “We cannot prolong the state of emergency eternally,’’ Mr. Hollande said before the attack, during Bastille Day celebrations in the capital. “Is the threat there? Yes.”
Another witness who owns a restaurant nearby, whom iTele did not identify, said that when the truck plowed into the crowd, it “crushed everyone in its path.” Then two men got out of the truck “and started shooting into the crowd, about 50 shots,” the witness said. And then, hours later, the main strip through Nice was littered with bodies, one after the other.
French television showed footage of a panicked crowd running from the scene. On Twitter, witnesses posted grim photos of bodies lying in a pile on the asphalt. The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Mr. Brandet, said in an interview on the iTele television network that an inquiry was underway to determine whether the attack was a terrorist act.
The Prefecture of Police in Nice said that the driver had been neutralized. “Whatever the nature of what happened in Nice, the threat of terrorism is particularly high,” he said, adding that security forces were on high alert in the area and in cities around France. Asked whether the state of emergency would now remain in place, Mr. Brandet said that would depend on the outcome of the inquiry.
Dozens of people were seriously injured and many more were psychologically shocked, Mr. Brandet said. The region has activated a so-called White Plan, put in place during the Nov. 13 Paris terror attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State, to open all emergency rooms to receive victims, he added.
More than an hour after the attack, there was no official claim of responsibility. It typically takes the Islamic State several hours, and sometimes up to one and even two days, to assert responsibility for attacks in Western countries. It typically does so through its Amaq channel on the encrypted phone app Telegram, which serves as the group’s news wire.
However, as in the hours immediately after the Paris, Brussels and Orlando attacks, there was a now familiar celebration on channels run by groups that support the Islamic State, as well as at least on one channel affiliated with the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL. They cheered and laughed at the carnage.
On a channel created Thursday, called the United Cyber Caliphate, run by a group that has previously attempted to carry out cyberattacks in the Islamic State’s name, a message included a single word — France — followed by a smiley face.
The channel of an Islamic State member, Aswarti Media, which has repeatedly been shut down and claims 1987 members, was posting the phrase “Allahu Akbar.” Yet another suspected pro-ISIS channel showed an image of the Eiffel Tower going up in flames.
The Nice attack took place just as the Euro 2016 soccer tournament had concluded. France had hosted the tournament, and the entire country had been on high alert. There had been reports that suspects linked to the attacks in Paris and the Brussels assault in March had planned an attack during the tournament.
With tens of thousands of people gathered at stadiums and in designated “fan zones” during the games, the police and private security took extraordinary measures to try to secure the sites.
It was difficult to know if the measures were successful or if in fact there were no plans to attack the soccer tournament.
One question people will be asking is whether the security forces, as well as civilians, let their guard down once the tournament was over thinking that the danger had passed.
Several witnesses spoke on iTele. A man who gave his name as Michel, working at the Voilier Plage restaurant in front of the Promenade des Anglais, said that around 10:30 p.m., a large white truck drove into a crowd that had gathered near the beach. “A huge number of people started running, then there was a lot of gunfire,” he said.
Another witness who owns a restaurant nearby, whom iTele did not identify, said that when the truck plowed into the crowd, it “crushed everyone in its path.”
French television showed footage of a panicked crowd running from the scene. On Twitter, witnesses posted grim photographs of bodies lying in a pile on the asphalt.