After Paris blast, shaken locals wait anxiously nearby

Rahman Oliur was anxiously waiting at a corner of a Parisian street on Wednesday, shortly after a blast ripped through it, injuring at least 30 and blowing up the front of his bazaar.

“The shop exploded. It felt like it was a bomb, an attack,” said Oliur, 27, still shaken by the explosion that he said miraculously left him unscathed. “If I had been closer to the window, I would not have made it.”

He said one of his neighbours wasn’t so lucky. He saw her leave the building with her two children, blood dripping from her injured arm.

Now that they had gotten out, his main concern was knowing whether his shop, located at 282 rue Saint-Jacques, in the heart of the Latin Quarter, would be secure as authorities were blocking the perimeter while safety operations were under way.

“I’m very scared, I don’t know how I’m going to handle security for the night,” he said.

Across the street, local bar L’Oree du Bois had become a rallying point for local residents in search of a place to stay for the night, as they were not hopeful they could return to their homes immediately.

Firefighters and medics were comforting older residents whom they had just evacuated from their buildings.

Some were speculating about the origin of the blast, suspecting a gas leak, like 75-year-old Monique Mosser. “We’re being told it’s gas, as they keep digging holes in every street of Paris …,” she said, referring to local work that was being done in the street.

Like Oliur, Mosser also thought the blast sounded like a bomb. “It’s really nerve-racking, as if a plane was falling on your head.”

Quentin Huet, 20, a student at the nearby Ecole des Mines graduate school, told Reuters it was not just the sound that scared him. “I saw a gigantic fire ball, 20 or 30 meter (65 to 100 feet) high — the stuff you see in movies or on TV,” he said.