Enschede, Saturday May 13th, at roughly 3:20 P.M. the everyday city life is disrupted abruptly by two big explosions...

Down below follows an illustrated report of some of the events that went on after the explosions. Also, for a detailed transcript of the events as I experienced them that day, click here
Please note that all data such as the time of the day and the distances are approximations, and are therefore not entirely accurate.

Right after having heard and felt the two massive explosions, I wondered what was going on. Upon looking to the north side of the house, I saw a huge cloud of smoke. This was when I decided to grab my camera bag, and check to see just what it was that had exploded. I went on bicycle and it was not long before it became clear to me that the big cloud of smoke was standing right above a nearby urban area!
The pictures in this section were taken some 3 minutes after the second of two big explosions, and the shape of the cloud in the first picture clearly shows that (as the cloud had not yet been spread out by the wind).
I could see several pieces of fireworks going up, so it became apparent that it must have been a fireworks storage space or a fireworks factory that had exploded. Hardly anything one would expect to find in the middle of an urban area!!!
I decided to get closer, and see if I could reach "ground zero" (i.e. the place where the explosions had taken place). The following six pictures show some of the things I encountered during the process of getting closer to ground zero. Remember, you can click on a picture to see a larger version of it, and find out more details of the specific scene.

Here I was getting really close to ground zero. The destruction was already really bad here. The streets were overladen with glass, broken roof tiles, pieces of fireworks, big slabs of armoured concrete, huge pieces of shredded steel containers and lots of other debris.
In these streets I had to carry my bicycle most of the time, in order to avoid punctured tires because of all the glass!
The following six pictures show some of the various kinds of debris that were lying around, as well as some of the damaged houses.

Progressing even further, I came right next to ground zero!
This is where the destruction was at its worst and where I could not proceed any further. From here it became clear that quite a substantial area was on fire.
Also, as fireworks were still going up into the air, and with no one around to fully seal off the area, it became clear that it was too dangerous to stick around over there very long.
The following pictures show the inferno that was raging in the city block that once stood right next to ground zero. It was no longer possible to get any closer, and as all of the area was on fire, I did not stay long here (some 5 minutes or so). Note that the images displayed here are not as graphic as the ones that could be seen on TV. This is because the area where those pictures were taken was still one big inferno when I was there, and later on only selected members of the press were allowed anywhere near those streets.

On my way back I passed several of the other streets that were very near to ground zero. These pictures give a short overview of what the streets looked like over there.

After the majority of the fires were under control and there was no further danger of an explosion at the Grolsch brewery, several people started some quick repairs to prepare their houses for the first night after the disaster.
At this time it had become clear that the disaster was far greater than what anyone had expected in the beginning!

Some grief statistics:

• 21-25 people lost their lives
• Several hundreds of wounded people were filling up the hospitals all over the county
• Some 11 of these wounded people were on intensive care
• Initially, some 200 people were missing, this number could later on be greatly reduced. At present (May 30th) only some 3 more people are still missing
• Some 200 houses are completely obliterated, and a further 2000 houses suffered damage
• The fireworks storage space contained roughly 100 tons (i.e. 100,000 KGs) of fireworks --- in the middle of an urban area!

The first two pictures in this section were taken on the evening of the explosions, all the other ones were taken the day after.
The events portrayed in this section show the way the army, police and firefighters had hermetically sealed off the area to prevent plunderings and "disaster turism".
Even at present (May 30th) not all areas have been opened up...

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