An orchestra started playing in an opera house in Vienna to keep an audience calm after they had been told to stay inside while a terror rampage unfolded in the streets.
The Austrian capital witnessed a ‘repulsive’ shooting attack in six locations on Monday, including near a synagogue and the world famous Wiener Staatsoper opera house.
Terrified opera-goers were told to stay inside by police when news of the nearby attacks came in and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra began playing to calm them.
Footage shows the orchestra play before a terrorist who killed four and injured 17 was ‘neutralised’ at 8.09pm after marauding through the streets wearing a fake explosives belt.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra play to calm crowds at the Wiener Staatsoper opera house after they were told to stay inside by police during yesterday’s terrorist attack in the Austrian capital
In the video, a nervous crowd watch the orchestra play the melody of Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, which was used as the Austrian empire’s anthem in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Barbara Lovett attended Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana opera at the venue yesterday and posted the footage of the orchestra on social media.
She said: ‘The police kept us safe inside the opera house. While we waited, some members of the philharmonic orchestra started playing.
‘No attack will ever stop the music in Vienna.’
Helicopters were flying above the opera house and much of central Vienna as police sealed off the city in the hunt for other attackers, while neighbouring countries stepped up border checks.
The orchestra played the melody of Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, which was used as the Austrian empire’s anthem in the 19th and early 20th centuries
The Austrian capital witnessed a ‘repulsive’ shooting attack in six locations on Monday, including near a synagogue and the world famous Wiener Staatsoper opera house south of Stephansplatz
Armed policemen stand guard in front of the main entrance of the State Opera in the center of Vienna this evening following the shootings
Women run away from the first district near the state opera, central Vienna as shots ring out following several attacks in the city
The shooting erupted just hours before Austria was to re-impose a coronavirus lockdown, with people out in bars and restaurants enjoying a final night out.
At the busy bars and restaurants, people were told to remain indoors.
‘At the beginning, I thought to myself that maybe we were making an American film or that they had drunk too much,’ said waiter Jimmy Eroglu, 42.
But then he heard shots. ‘The police came in and said, “you all have to stay inside because there’s a probably a dead man there”.’
Robert Schneider, who lives in central Vienna, went out and found two lasers trained on his chest.
Opera guests leave the state opera under the supervision of armed policemen, in the center of Vienna after the shootings
Vienna police said in a Twitter post there had been ‘six different shooting locations’ with ‘one deceased person’ and ‘several injured’, as well as ‘one suspect shot and killed by police officers’
Shocking footage from Israeli TV showing a gunman carrying an AK-47 and handgun and shooting a person in the street near the start of the attack in Vienna
‘Hands up, take off your jacket,’ officers shouted at him, the 39-year-old said. ‘We had seen nothing, heard nothing. We are in shock.’
A terrorist armed with an automatic rifle, pistol and machete was stopped by Austrian police after the attacks.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the gunman was Kujtim Fejzulai, an Austrian-North Macedonian dual national, who was sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019 because he had tried to travel to Syria to join Islamic State.
He was granted early release in December under juvenile law and police believed he was incapable of carrying out an attack, according to a report.
Drinks left over stand on a table of a cafe near Stephansplatz in Vienna on Tuesday morning after the shooting attack
A broken plate lies on the ground next to chairs and tables of a cafe near Stephansplatz in Vienna on Tuesday monring
A man carrying an assault rifle and believed to be the gunman who carried out the rampage in Vienna on Monday evening
A huge manhunt is still ongoing with 1,000 security personnel drafted in to search for other suspects after shots were heard in at least six locations a few hundred yards apart in the city centre.
Two women and two men were killed on Monday night.
One of the women was a waitress who died of gunshot wounds in hospital, and another who was aged in her 40s later died in the Ottakring Clinic, local reports said.
One of the male victims was discovered in the meat market, while another was found gravely wounded on Franz-Josefs-Kai, close to the Wien river.
A police officer was also shot and seriously injured. Seven of the 17 victims being treated in hospital are in a critical, life-threatening condition, according to Austrian news agency APA.