In Ankara, on October 10, a few minutes after 10 AM, two of us (Alp and Max) were on our way to the “Labor, Peace and Democracy” rally. We were a little late and just entering the crowd, rushing towards the train station to meet with others, when the first bomb struck two hundred meters ahead. It all happened at the same time — the explosion, the shockwave, a thirty-foot column of fire and smoke.

Everything stopped, then the second bomb exploded. What happened was clear to us, but not the precise dimensions. We pulled back, as did most around us, the crowd remaining astonishingly calm. Within a minute or so, the first cabs with wounded people passed.

After a few minutes, police flocked to the site — water cannons, armored vehicles, and then the riot squads. At the other side of the rally, things were more serious. We could see the clouds of tear gas. Many of Ankara’s hospitals are on the same street as the train station. When the street is empty, an ambulance can probably make its way from the hospitals to the station in one minute. We later learned that the riot police were preventing emergency vehicles from passing.