Explosion shuts down Brussels' central rail station

An explosion went off in Brussels’ central rail station a couple hours ago. Early reports suggest it was a bomb vest and that a soldier reacted by shooting the person involved. From NBC News:

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The main train station in the Belgian capital was evacuated Tuesday evening after security forces shot a person following a small but fiery blast, officials said.

Nobody besides the alleged perpetrator was hurt in the incident, which happened around 9 p.m. local time at Brussels Central Station, the prosecutor’s office reported.

“Military personnel had to neutralize an individual,” the Belgian Crisis Center reported in a tweet. “Situation is under control. Police are on the scene. Follow orders.”

From the BBC, Belgian newspapers are reporting that the person shouted “Allahu Akbar” before detonating the bomb:

According to Belgian newspaper La Libre, quoting prosecutors, the man who was shot was wearing a rucksack and a bomb belt.

He detonated a device when he attracted the attention of soldiers in the station, the paper says.

Several Belgian media outlets quote witnesses as saying the man shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) before setting off the explosion.

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Given the recent terror attacks in London and Paris, assuming this was terrorism no longer seems like a leap. But we’ll see. Sometimes the early reports are wrong.

A bystander took a photo of a small fire that followed the explosion and tweeted it out:

The person who took this photo was interviewed on Fox News. He described hearing two explosions which caused everyone to run for the exits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQQPORL7pCo

I’ll update this post as more become available.

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