In City of Peace, a Day of Sorrow and Unease

Silence can sound sinister when it comes to a cheerful beach resort on a brilliant July day. The silence was thick here Saturday morning as people blinked out of a sleepless night.

The Road of Peace, the main boulevard of the tourist district, stood empty and baking under a cloudless sky. Shards of storefront windows littered the walkways like spilled beads. The alleys were strewn with belly dancing costumes and piles of scarves abandoned by shopkeepers who fled the three bomb blasts.

For hours Saturday morning, gone was the clamor of taxis and tourists rushing off to the golf course, the diving centers, the restaurants. There was only the whoosh of government sedans moving fast on empty roads and the clatter of jackhammers as workers dug for victims in the collapsed layers of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel.

It was a sorrowful day for this city, and a jarring one. Set on the edge of spectacular underwater reefs, Sharm el Sheik is a linchpin of Egypt’s tourism industry -- the gum-smacking, flip-flop-clad alter ego to the crumbling grandeur of the Pharaonic ruins.

But as the town dubbed the “City of Peace,” Sharm el Sheik has also been the political crown jewel of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Won back from Israel in exchange for peace, the tip of the Sinai Peninsula has emerged as a go-to backdrop for pledges of moderation and compromise. Israeli President Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shook hands here in February.

Saturday’s bombings left gloomy residents wondering whether the city could retain its nickname, and whether the tourists would still come. Worried shopkeepers loitered in the streets, fretting over what would become of their livelihoods.

“Today we can say that Sharm is over,” Mohammed Sayed, the night manager of a grocery store, said mournfully. “Even my friends, the bazaar owners, went home to their villages.”

Some tourists came close to the wreckage to gape, film or glower. Others chattered frantically into cellphones, hunting for a way home. And some set their sunburned jaws and buckled down to enjoy their holidays against all odds.

Soldiers lined the roadways as security convoys raced up and down. Ambulances idled on the curbs, their floors already smeared with blood but the stretchers ready to receive more.

“I move the bodies and put them into a refrigerator,” said Mustafa Husseini, a 30-year-old paramedic. “This is what I’ve been doing all night. Whoever did this has no mercy and no heart.”

On the Road of Peace, the facade of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel was sheared away. The force of the blast had shoved mangled cars away from the hotel, wrapped metal beams around flagpoles as if they were twist-ties and scattered body parts over the resort’s main drag.

“The bodies were cut and shredded on the road,” said Sabahi Malek, a 34-year-old security guard at a nearby casino. “I was scared. All of us were scared. We didn’t sleep all night.”

Instead, Malek spent the hours watching crews slowly haul away the bodies. Dawn came and the sun began to simmer, and still the work continued. Red Crescent volunteers tiptoed through the rubble with rubber gloves and plastic trash bags.

“I’m helping to collect pieces of bodies,” said Saleh Ahmed, a 53-year-old volunteer who had driven 60 miles through the dark desert to pitch in. Sweat slid down his face in sheets. “We can’t help it. It’s a disaster.”

The air smelled of gunpowder and blood. Clad in hard hats, workers attacked the heap with sledgehammers and shovels, searching for survivors or, as time went on, bodies. “Here’s a passport,” somebody called from what used to be an Italian restaurant. They pored over its pages and then put it away for identification.

Outside his shop carrying papyrus and sphinx bric-a-brac, Hemdan Okasha Salem sat staring into space. The bottom of his traditional robe was splotched with dried blood from his wounded leg; he had already been to a hospital and was out again. “It was terrible,” he said. And yet he shrugged off the gloom of his neighbors.

“I’ll be here,” he said. “You can’t just leave your place and go someplace else after every explosion.”