Bomb

Yesterday I was quite unnerved (and still am a bit) and was mainly on the internet to see if I could find more info on what had happened here, but other than my local newspaper, the Frankfurt Allgemein and a short article on CNN (that took forever to find), I wasn’t able to find anything (shame on you, BBC). Apparently the bomb would have had to have gone off for it to be considered big news, so I’m (now) glad I couldn’t find much (I wasn’t then).

It turns out that the actual bomb was discovered at 14h on Tuesday. What happened was an abandoned bag was found in the train station at some point in time on Monday and taken to the left luggage office. The Dortmund bomb was found at 14h40 on Monday, and it took almost 24 hours for a genius at DB to realise that the unattended bag that had been picked up the day before might contain the same type of thing. So, the train station was evacuated, as was an area 200 metres around it, and sealed off by the police.

The mood here is one of bafflement, not fear or panic.

The question that is being asked by all: ‘Why here?’

Nobody understands.

Why not Berlin?

Frankfurt?

Munich?

Hamburg?

Why here?

London, Madrid, Mumbai and here?

There’s no reason for this provincial town to be targeted by anybody. We aren’t the capital. We don’t have a large banking industry. We aren’t a tourist mecca. We’re just a typical place where people live and work.

We don’t understand.

If the bomb (which contained 11 litres of propane gas) had gone off at the train station it could have taken out the taxi rank, a shop that people can make phone calls from, a few restaurants and bakeries, a large bike rack, a small car park, a flower shop and one or two hotels.

Why am I still a bit unnerved? This is my first bomb. I’ve never had to experience anything like this before in my life and hope I don’t have to ever again (but realise that I might). Bombs don’t happen here. They happen in far off countries I can’t find on a map, not near where I live. Or so I thought until Madrid. Then London. Now here. This was (literally) way too close to home.

An explosive device that could have killed many people was IN MY TOWN! At MY train station! The one I LIVE BEHIND and pass by and/or through a few times EVERY DAY. The train station that frequently whisks me out of town. The one that has the bookshop that sells me magazines and newspapers from time to time. The one with the friendly people in the restaurant that know me and smile at me when I have lunch there or just pass by. That one that brings old people with bicycles and other tourists here. The one that my friends, colleagues and students use, not to mention the number of schoolchildren that pass through it. The train station that young people skateboard in front of.

MY train station.

The ‘Oh Look’ post could have been the last post ever on this blog due to the fact that I was at the train station checking on the price of a ticket at 12h on Tuesday – before the bomb was discovered but after it had been placed there.

So, now the formerly unimaginable has been added to my life and I admit that I’m still somewhat shocked by it. I don’t know how to react. I don’t know what to think. However, I do know that I will survive and in time will somehow learn to change my thought process to incorporate this scenario as not being all that far-fetched. I can no longer think of it as ‘It COULD happen here’, I have to learn to think of it as ‘It HAS happened here’.