A WOMAN from Verwood has spoken of the moment she was caught up in the recent terror attack in Brussels.

Rhona Murphy was in in the Belgian capital on a work trip looking for somewhere to eat at Grand Place - yards from the railway station that had been targeted - when she heard a “massive noise”.

She had been at the station just 90 minutes before a would-be suicide bomber was gunned down by Belgian soldiers after setting off a small explosion on Tuesday.

The 53-year-old woman said Grand Place was packed with people eating outside enjoying the warm weather. Within seconds it was “pandemonium”, she said.

“Then three policemen ran past together with another man who wasn’t in uniform,” she said. “We thought it might have been a road crash or something.

“Thirty seconds after that there was a massive noise. Within seconds there were glasses flying in the air and people just running. We didn’t know what had happened. There were shoes lying on the floor where people had just left them and ran. All the shutters were coming down at the restaurants. We tried to find somewhere to get inside but everywhere was closing down.”

Mrs Murphy said a policeman then shouted “terrorist at the station”.

It wasn’t until she and her companion returned to their hotel that they saw the news and they were informed someone had been “neutralised”.

She said despite the ordeal and seeing armed soldiers manning the station, she had not been put off visiting big cities again.

“You can’t stop living life,” she said. “You have to carry on. It wouldn’t stop me from going back to these places. You can’t let it do that.”

Belgium’s Crisis Centre, which monitors security threats in the country, said it did not see a need to raise the country’s terror threat and kept it at the second-highest mark.

Federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said damage from the explosion, which occurred well after the evening rush-hour at around 8.30pm, was limited.

Central Station is one of the busiest in the country and soldiers could be seen patrolling there after the explosion.

Belgium has been on high alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people on the Brussels subway and at an airport in March last year.