- European leaders in emergency huddle
- Neighbors tighten borders security
- Air, rail links to Belgium frozen
BRUSSELS/PARIS — Tuesday’s attacks in Brussels that killed at least 26 people struck at “the whole of Europe,” French President Francois Hollande said echoing the words of many other European leaders.
“Through the attacks in Brussels, the whole of Europe has been hit,” Hollande said in a statement, urging the continent to take “vital steps in the face of the seriousness of the threat.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the attacks in Brussels appear to be aimed not just at Belgium but at the entire European Union and its freedoms.
Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw is calling all three explosions “terrorist attacks.”
Two of the explosions on Tuesday morning hit Brussels’ Zavantem airport and the third struck in the city’s Maelbeek metro station.
Authorities in Europe tightened security at airports, on subways, at the borders and on city streets.
With Brussels on lockdown and the French prime minister saying that Europe is “at war,” European leaders held emergency security meetings and deployed more police, explosives experts, sniffer dogs and plainclothes officers at key points across the bloc.
The Paris airport authority said security was tightened at all Paris airports soon after the Brussels explosions. Airports in London, Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, and many others, also saw increased security.
The British, Dutch and Polish governments convened emergency meetings as they beefed up security at airports.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain’s David Cameron vowed to help Belgium.
“Our thoughts are there, in Brussels, and we are praying for the victims,” said Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who canceled a routine news conference to attend an emergency meeting with her government security council.
Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said more police are on the streets and at airports in Vienna and other major Austrian cities even though there appears to be no “Austria connection.”
In Greece, police added additional security at airports, metro stations and embassies with uniformed and plain-clothed officers.
Belgium’s neighbors France, Germany and the Netherlands tightened border security.
Europe froze air and rail links to Brussels. Eurostar said all trains to and from Brussels had been halted.
European high speed train service Thalys said all its traffic, too, had been stopped.
Among major airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa confirmed all flights departing from and arriving at Brussels had been cancelled for the day.
France’s civil aviation authority said five international flights headed for Brussels had been diverted to French airports.
