The explosions have been condemned by the Belgian Prime Minister and others as a "cowardly" terrorist attack.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."
Frightened passengers at Zaventem airport attempt to reassure one another at a time where everything was certainly not okay.
The sounds of sirens and panic reverberated throughout the departures terminal after two explosions hit in quick succession just after 8am local time.
Journalist Teresa Küchler had just checked into her flight when the blasts went off.
She told SBS she was only 100 metres away and quickly hid behind a counter.
"Oh god it felt like hours. I don't know, five - six minutes or so. There was just one woman hiding there already and she was just silently crying sitting next to me, and that was really, really chilling because she wasn't even in panic. She was kind of almost already in grief of, you know, things were gonna end. It was a total resignation or something, and that really freaked me out more than if she had been you know crying or screaming loudly."
Other survivors say the floors were covered with bodies and debris, and they had to pick their way through the darkness.
"I heard a gunshot, and what sounded like Arabic, then I heard BOOM, an enormous explosion. Afterwards, people ran to the lifts and others took the escalators. Two old people who ran towards me, I saved them! I put them in the lift but they didn't want to let go of me."
"Then I just go under the sink and then the second explosion went and then everything is black. And when I go out I see a lot of people with blood."
A third bomb at the airport failed to detonate and was later destroyed by authorities.
An hour after that attack, another explosion struck Maelbeek train station in the Brussels city centre, near the European Union headquarters.
Australian Joshua Davis was on a bus on the way to Maelbeek metro at the height of rush hour when he heard a loud "bang".
"Well at first I thought it was a car accident because there was glass broken on the front doors and people screaming, but then I realised that it wasn't a car because there was no chance of being that because there was no car to do that, so I concluded that it must have been an explosion of some sort. That's when I realised I'd better get out of here so I just ran away. I just got off the bus and stopped and ran."
The bombings come four days after Belgian officials arrested the country's most-wanted man, Saleh Abdeslam - the main suspect behind last year's deadly attacks in Paris.
European security experts had been braced for an assault on the country for months, but authorities were still seemingly caught off guard.
A series of raids have since taken place across Belgium, with an IS flag, a nail bomb and chemicals reportedly found at a home.
Belgian prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw says CCTV footage at the airport has also been released, showing three men suspected of being behind the blasts.
"A photograph of three male suspects was taken at the airport. Two of them seemed to have committed suicide attacks. The third, wearing a light-coloured jacket, is actively being sought. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks through a press agency. That still needs to be formally verified, and at this point it is not possible to establish a formal link with the Paris attacks."
A manhunt for the third surviving suspect will continue as raids press on to find any accomplices.
Prime Minister Charles Michel issued a call for calm, but warned that authorities are worried there will be more attacks.
"We have deployed military reinforcements. We have decided to reinforce border controls and take restrictive measures on transport networks. We realise we face a tragic moment. At this dark moment for our country, now more than ever, I would like to appeal to all to be calm and show solidarity."
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