In my last post, I referred to the two minutes' silence that the Dutch were observing at 8pm local time. I watched the ceremony in Amsterdam courtesy the Internet. In the last 15 seconds of the two minutes, people suddenly started running away from an area of the Dam square in Amsterdam, panicking at - nobody knew what. The Queen and other royals were quickly led away into the nearby Palace. The master of ceremonies quickly announced that someone had collapsed and was being attended to by paramedics. Judging by the some of the pictures on NOS TV, which was being relayed on the Net, some bystanders were pushed over and hurt. It brought back some very bad memories of just over a year ago, when a deranged man drove into a crowd of spectators at the Queen's Day celebrations in Apeldoorn, killing 7. Hearing of the cause of the disturbance, I can only assume that the panic was caused by the memory of that terrible incident.
Within a minute or two, everybody had resumed their places, including the Queen. Amidst emotional scenes, the ceremony resumed by the playing of the National Anthem, colloquially referred to in Holland as the Wilhelmus.
I can imagine the emotions that were felt by those at the ceremony Guido.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it wasn't a terrorist attack or such like. Sad about the spectators and the bystander who needed paramedic help. I hope they all soon recovered.
Jeanie