“At first we thought somebody was opening a champagne bottle, but people in black rushed in, then it sounded like more shots were fired, and panic broke out, everybody ran where they could, I never saw anything like it,” an Index staff writer reported.

The noise was apparently caused by firecrackers thrown by football hooligans at police on nearby Madách tér.

An estimated 200 hooligans chanting anti-Romania slogans walked from the City Park along Dob utca to the downtown area, where police had formed a wall.

Later, reports came in of captured people with hands twisted behind their back being led towards waiting police cars at Astoria and the neighbouring streets.

Source: Hungary Around the Clock

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MTI photo: Lakatos Péter