Moscow concert hall attack 'Everyone was running': Concertgoers recount their frantic escape

Some smashed through reinforced windows and locked exits with their bare hands

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The four armed men walked calmly towards the metal detectors at Crocus City Hall, firing their automatic weapons pointblank in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets.

Nearby, a witness named Natalya had just taken off her coat and was standing in line on the evening of March 22 at the internal entrance to the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow, where Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit song, Afraid Of Nothing.

"The shots came from behind us," Natalya, who asked for her surname not to be used, told Reuters.

She was just about to enter the stalls.

"It was loud, like a firecracker blast, fireworks, but like an automatic burst. I could hear it right behind me, not far away," she said.

Then she ran for her life.

"Everyone was screaming; everyone was running," she added.

Natalya ran to the nearby metro station through the cold Moscow night without her coat and escaped. "I experienced terrible emotions. It is simply a nightmare." Reuters was able to piece together some of what took place at the concert hall from interviews with witnesses, video footage from the scene and Russian official accounts and media reports.

More than 143 people were killed and dozens more injured in the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege.