Bombs away! One more time!
My German friends are going to a wedding I think at Sharm el-Sheikh next week. Scheisse!
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Blasts kill 50 in Egyptian Red Sea resort -police
Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:24 AM ET
(Page 1 of 3)
By Jonathan Wright
CAIRO (Reuters) - Fifty people died and 200 were wounded when car bombs ripped through a bazaar and tourist hotels in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday in Egypt's worst attack in nearly a decade.
Shaken European tourists spoke of mass panic and hysteria as people fled the carnage, with bodies strewn across the roads, people screaming and sirens wailing.
The regional governor said two car bombs and possibly a suitcase bomb had rocked the resort that is popular with divers.
One blast tore the front off the Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Naama Bay, the site of most of the resort's luxury hotels, where people were feared trapped in the rubble.
"I have never been so scared in the whole of my life," British tourist Samantha Hardcastle said of the bombs.
"The explosion we felt was very violent and the hotel we are staying in shook," she told BBC television. "It was absolutely horrific."
It was the worst attack on tourist targets in Egypt since attackers killed 58 tourists at an ancient temple near Luxor in 1997.
Britons, French, Spaniards, Dutch, Qataris, Kuwaitis and Egyptians were among the 50 dead and 200 wounded, police sources said.
Thirteen Italians and 15 other foreigners were among the wounded, a Tourism Ministry spokeswoman said. She had no firm figures for the number of non-Egyptian fatalities.
Egypt's tourism minister worried that the attacks would hit the $6.6 billion tourism industry, the country's biggest private sector employer, in the short term.
The first explosion hit the old market in Sharm el-Sheikh town shortly after 1 a.m. (2200 GMT), filling the air with fire and smoke, residents said. Continued ...
today.reuters.com |
