Fear has been gripping Iranians as Israel vows to continue attacking the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, with many fleeing the bigger cities, including the capital Tehran, in search of safer areas.
A resident of Saadat Abad, a wealthy neighborhood in north Tehran which has been hit in Israel’s strikes, told CNN they heard explosions all night, some so powerful that it shook their entire apartment building. Like other people in Iran who spoke with CNN, the resident asked to remain anonymous out of concern for their safety.
There was chaos as residents ran down to the ground level after smelling smoke from a nearby building that had also been targeted, the resident said. Families with young children struggled to keep them calm.
Unlike Israel, Iran’s capital Tehran doesn’t have modern bomb shelters, so the city must make use of tunnels, basements or older shelters used in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s – the last timethe country faced such a grave national emergency.
“In Tehran there weren’t any shelters, people went into basements,” the chairman of Tehran’s City Council, Mehdi Chamran, told reporters Sunday, adding that the metro can be used as a shelter “in extreme crisis” but that “we would need to shut the system down.”
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