Palm Springs High Grad Near Bomb Blast In Oslo, Norway

When 20 year old Anna Hammond of Palm Springs enrolled in the International Summer School at the University of Oslo, the last thing she thought she’d be doing was recounting via skpe where she was when at least 8 people died when a car bomb detonated in downtown Oslo, outside government buildings.

Anna was just 4 or 5 blocks away with her roomate and a friend. They were trying to reconcile their bill at a sushi shop when they heard the explosion. “It was really bizarre. I don’t think a lot of people knew what to make of it, you know how to behave which is good. There wasn’t panic or chaos where we were,” said Hammond.

In making their way back to their dorm rooms Anna and her companions headed for the city center where they began to see the damage the blast had caused. “The second stories of buildings had glass that was broken and had fallen and we were walking by a building and more glass was falling out as were walking,” said Hammond.

Anna says it wasn’t until late in the day Friday that details began emerging in Norway that the same man responsible for the bombing, Anders Breivik, had carried out a shooting rampage that left 68 dead at a summer political youth camp on Utoya Island. “It’s disgusting really. They’re students, young people that are meant to go on later and be political figures in the Labor Party and then were just massacred.”

Yet, despite the attacks, Anna believes she is safe. She has seen how the Norwegian people have come together to support each other. The Palm Springs High grad plans to finish her courses of study in Norwegian language and history. “To go back home right now I feel would hinder me a lot just because there is no one else that can relate to me and know what I went through. Right now Norway is the best place for me to be.”