Militants staged twin bomb and shooting attacks against Norway’s government yesterday, as a deadly explosion ripped through ministry buildings and a gunman opened fire at a meeting of the ruling party.
Blast victims lying bleeding on sidewalks sprinkled with shattered glass from disfigured buildings; normally peaceful Oslo resembled a war zone yesterday after a powerful bomb tore through its core.
In the blink of an eye the city of half a million, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year, became a picture of urban desolation with building skeletons left standing after an explosion heard kilometres away.
The windows of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office were blown clear out – the imposing government tower badly damaged on all sides so that one can see right through the building.
Surrounding buildings were also mangled.
According to the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, whose editorial team have a clear view of the devastated government building, a body was seen dangling from a blown-out window shortly after the explosion. An early police toll said the attack claimed seven lives, with two people seriously injured.
But the normally bustling neighbourhood, which houses several government ministries, is much more quiet at this time of year with many people away on holiday.
Police moved quickly yesterday to cordon off the area where a black car lay on its side among shards of glass and papers fluttering in the wind. Building alarms screamed as firemen worked to contain fires and yellow ambulances rushed to the scene.
“People are lying in the street covered in blood,” Ingunn Andersen, a journalist with public radio NRK, said from the scene.
“There is glass everywhere. It is total chaos. The windows of all the surrounding buildings have been blown out,” she said – at first having thought the city had been hit by an earthquake.
A police spokesman said a “bomb” was behind an explosion by the government headquarters in Oslo. “A powerful explosion has taken place in the government quarter,” Norwegian police said in a statement, though Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was safe. A police official told a press conference that authorities had little clue who or what was behind the attack.
“We have no main theory, we don’t even have a working theory,” the official said. “We already have enough to do to get an understanding of the situation.”
Speaking to reporters, the police spokesman said “several dozen” people had been wounded in the blast which caused widespread damage to both the Prime Minister’s office and the finance ministry.
The spokesman said a vehicle had been seen driving at high speed in the area just before the explosion but did confirm that the blast had been caused by a car bomb.
Images on Norwegian television showed the Prime Minister’s office and other buildings heavily damaged, sidewalks covered in broken glass and smoke rising from the area.
Police had sealed off the area, which also houses the country’s biggest tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang (VG). They had also urged residents to stay in their homes.