Blast Felt Like ‘End Of The World’

There was a sign of danger, but not enough time to get the Americans out of harm’s way. Then came a blast so strong it felt like “the end of the world.”

It was a humid summer night in this coastal city. A fuel truck pulled up to the metal fence ringing the Khobar Towers, a group of high-rise apartment buildings housing U.S. servicemen.

A U.S. airman in an observation tower became suspicious. When a Saudi officer went to investigate, two men jumped out of the truck and drove off in a white car.

Within minutes, a 35-foot-deep crater stood where the truck had been, and one side of the nearest apartment building - all eight stories of it - was a heap of concrete and twisted metal.

Master Sgt. William Sine was inside.

He had just walked out of his room and was heading for the elevator when he felt the blast. “Bang! It knocked me off the ground,” he said.

“The lights went off … and I realized the whole side of the building was falling.”

Sine, 39, of Howland, Ohio, was badly cut on the thigh, face and arms. But he helped drag bodies out of the building and comforted the wounded outside the building.

“There were some people dead,” he said from his bed at the King Fahd Hospital. “I could feel a lot of blood on my hands and I knew it couldn’t be sweat, because it was too thick.”

Finally, he told his mother in a phone call, his legs gave out and he let medics take him to the hospital.

The devastation stretched for blocks. Shop windows and car windshields were shattered, paving the roads and sidewalks with glass.

“We thought it was the end of the world,” said Walid, a 22-year-old Saudi who was walking with his brother on a nearby street when the truck exploded.

The quiet streets around the compound filled with hundreds of people. Police cars and ambulances wailed. It was dark, and Walid could make out only “noise and confusion.”

“Some (people) were crying. Some just sat on the ground and held their ears,” said Walid, who wouldn’t give his last name.

In all, 19 Americans were dead and at least 270 people were injured.

On Wednesday, Saudi police and troops toting semiautomatic rifles shouted “Move! Move!” at onlookers and reporters.

“Get them out of here,” one officer barked to his men.