Global landmarks lit with Belgium’s colors after Brussels attacks

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Landmarks around the world were bathed in black, yellow, and red lights – colors of the Belgian flag – as a sign of solidarity with the victims of the Brussels attack.

Paris’ Eiffel Tower led the way, with the iconic symbol of the city illuminated in Belgium’s national colors as dusk fell to honor the victims, with the toll put around 35.

“Paris and Brussels are united. The Eiffel Tower has been lit up in the Belgian colours,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter.

She will head to Brussels on Wednesday “to express the solidarity of Parisians with the people of Brussels,” her office said in a separate statement.

“Today, Europe is targeted at her heart,” Hidalgo said earlier Tuesday. “Once more it is basic values that are attacked: freedom, humanism, tolerance and unshakeable commitment to democracy.”

Similar tributes were done in Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate; Dubai’s Burj Khalifa; Rome’s Capitoline Hill; and Amsterdam’s Royal Palace.

In the United States, New York’s World Trade Center’s spire was colored black, red, and yellow, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying on twitter that it was lit “in solemn solidarity with the people of Belgium.”

Uptown, New York’s iconic Empire State Building remained dark, foregoing its traditional white, in sympathy for the lives lost.

Dozens of Belgian expatriates gathered in Union Square in Manhattan after night fell, bringing flowers, candles and flags to express solidarity with the victims and survivors of the attacks.

“It’s important to be here,” said Renaud Vanlangendonck, 33, a former teacher carrying his five-month-old daughter. “We saw it in New York, Paris, Istanbul… and now it’s our country. It’s horrible.”

There was a visible police presence in Union Square as law enforcement bolstered security across America’s largest city.

The lighting of global landmarks in the colors of the Belgian flag was inspired by a similar move back in November, when major buildings the world over were illuminated in the French tricolor after the deadly attacks in Paris. – With reports from Agence France-Presse / Rappler.com