Smoke billows from a building as people stand looking at the site of a powerful explosion that rocked central Oslo July 22, 2011.Thomas Winje/Reuters
Jonas Bakken was just about to pack up for the day ahead of a weekend away at his summer house when explosions tore through the nearby government buildings.
"We were several metres away from the blast. The whole building was shaking and black smoke was going up into the air. I was very shaken," the financial journalist based in Oslo said.
"Naturally people are pretty upset and worried," he said, describing the mood in the city immediately after the blasts. Information was scarce in those first few hours. Rather than go home to his wife and two young daughters in the suburbs, Mr. Bakken stayed at his desk to follow media reports.
There was confusion around the details of the blasts, including what had caused them and who might be responsible.
He finally headed home almost an hour after the blasts and before reports of shooting on the island of Utoya had begun. Mr. Bakken was worried he wouldn't be able to drive home, but, other than the area surrounding the blast site, the roads were clear. "The whole area is blocked off, but there are a lot of people on the streets trying to see what's going on," he said.
"It's a very strange mood in the city," he said. Oslo and much of Norway are in the middle of summer vacations, when people flee the city for their summer homes and cabins. "The mood in the city was very slow and easy." Until this.
Rune Skroppa works in one of the buildings that was hit and was on his way home from work when the ground in his uptown neighbourhood trembled from the blasts. He said that because of the holidays most people finished work at 3 p.m. – just minutes before the bombs went off. After the blasts, the streets downtown and around his office were almost abandoned as residents rushed away from the scene. But there were no tears on the faces he saw, just a shared sense of disbelief.
Minutes before the blasts, Mr. Bakken spoke to a friend who had been in one of the buildings that was struck. The friend was quite shaken up. "He had his children in the building," Mr. Bakken said. "Now it looks like a war zone."
More than anything. people seem stunned by an attack against what many see as a peaceful country and city, with pastel buildings and quick-to-smile inhabitants.
"It's absolutely horrible. There is devastating damage to some of these buildings," said Mr. Bakken, referring to the blown-out windows and crumbling former edifices of government life in Oslo. Now glass shards litter the blood-stained sidewalks outside them.
"You think about the people and the long-term consequences and it's just …" he said, his words trailing off.