The first wave of bombs fell on Bridge B-1 around 2:30 p.m., clarifies Ehsan Karami. The firefighter lives just a few minutes from the massive structure. He arrived at the vicinity of the viaduct along with hundreds of people who began to gather around.
Iran was celebrating Sizdah be-dar day. The last day of the Nowruz festival, a kind of local New Year's Eve.
"I was helping an electrician team cut high-voltage cables. There was a huge traffic jam. Dozens of cars gathered to see what had happened," he recalls at the station where his team is stationed, just a few meters from the scene.
From here, the damaged structure, which rises above at about 136 meters, can be clearly seen. The Karaj bridge spanned about 1,050 meters. Iranian authorities said it was the tallest in the Middle East. The projectiles tore off more than half of the cement.
Karami describes the first moments after the initial attack as pure "chaos." What happened next was horror. The second airstrike was recorded at 3:15 p.m., notes Mehdi Ghoreishi, an employee of the construction company.
"I had returned home, and everything shook as if it were an earthquake. I almost fell to the ground. There were several bombs. I heard 8 explosions," recounts the member of the Karaj assistance services.
The 37-year-old Iranian ran out of his house and encountered an endless line of vehicles covered in a thick layer of dust. Many of the victims remained inside.
"There were four women aged 30 to 40. One had her arm torn off by the explosion. Another was decapitated. Shrapnel had decapitated her. And a third had a huge piece of metal embedded in her belly. They were all dead," he recalls.
It turned into a walk through horror. Karami stumbled upon another corpse. He did not recognize it because it too "had lost its head." He later found out who it was. One of his neighbors. His name was Amir Heideri, a 32-year-old mechanic.
"His father had been injured in the first attack and took him to the hospital. They asked for his ID, and he went back home to get it. The second explosion caught him leaving his house and killed him," he adds.
A street sweeper in the park below the bridge was hit by another piece of cement. "It split his head in two. I found him lying on the ground, in a pool of blood," says Miiaad Rajabi, another of Karami's colleagues.
All the firefighters and the aforementioned Mehdi Ghoreishi have different recordings of that fateful day. The videos show the fireballs caused by the projectiles and the screams, and chaos, they generated among the crowd gathered near B1. One of them shows the third attack, carried out by a drone, late at night, as the last explosion sets the suspension cables of the construction on fire.
"This bridge was the enemy's envy, and that's why they destroyed it," opines Mehdi Ghoreishi.
The bombing of the B1 bridge in the city of Karaj, about 50 kilometers from Tehran, on April 2, was one of the most significant moments of the US and Israel's aerial assault on Iran. Donald Trump - in one of his usual outbursts on the internet - had promised to "return" the country "to the Stone Age," destroying its infrastructure.
What is referred to here as the Ramadan War (as it partially took place during that symbolic month for Muslims) has exacerbated the damage already suffered by the Iranian economy, battered by an endless list of sanctions for years, causing around 270 billion dollars in direct and indirect damages, according to the estimate provided in April by government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani in an interview with a Russian agency.
In a statistics-devoted system, Iranian authorities have already offered a detailed account of the damage caused during this war, which - according to their figures - resulted in about 3,500 deaths, over a third of them (1,200) in the capital. The injured were counted in the thousands. Over 33,000, Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi stated this week.
"Almost 50% of the attacks were recorded in the capital," said local governor Mohammad Sadeq Motamediyan, quoted by the Mehr agency.
According to the same official, the bombings caused varying degrees of damage to around 60,000 homes - 122,000 nationwide - 466 industrial centers, and over 11,000 vehicles in the province.
The numbers hardly reflect the overwhelming human cost of the conflict or the terrible experience survivors of these attacks have gone through. Majid Gamsede is one of them and cannot hide his anger.
"Those two sons of bitches (sic), Trump and Netanyahu, say they came to liberate us. What do I have to do with the government? They killed two families here who used to shout against the Islamic Republic during the January protests," says the 51-year-old Iranian.
The owner of a car wash business miraculously survived by defying all logic. His establishment - where he also lived - is located not far from Risalat Square in eastern Tehran. On March 9, the Israeli air force acknowledged having targeted the area under the assumption that a government forces' barracks were there.
The projectiles hit an official building - no one can explain who used it - but also destroyed dozens of apartments in the same neighborhood. Civilian homes like those occupied by the 12 members of the Mirzaei family. Their faces are still hanging on a wall that remains standing. "We deeply regret the tragic loss of our loved ones," reads below the portraits.
Another nearby banner states: "This is evidence of America's crimes." "Trump, idiot," asserts another.
The bombs began to fall around 2:29 in the afternoon. Majid remembers by the clock he had next to the television in his house. "There were three explosions," he points out.
"They knew we were civilians and they attacked us"
"They claim they can target with precision? They can go to hell! (sic). They knew who we were here, they knew we were civilians, and they attacked us," adds the Iranian, unable to contain his indignation.
Both he, his wife, and his son miraculously survived, even though the roof and a wall of the house collapsed. Upon exiting, Majid encountered a woman covered in blood. Another who had arrived 20 minutes earlier to wash her car was lying on the ground. "She had no blood but she was dead."
The street was full of human remains. Legs, hands, mere masses of unrecognizable flesh. "We collected almost 20 pieces. See that air conditioner? A piece of flesh that big got embedded in it," he says, gesturing with his hands.
The attack devastated the neighborhood. More than a dozen apartment blocks were gutted. An excavator continues to collect debris. The charred shells of another twenty cars are lined up at one end of the lot where homes once stood.
She acknowledges her discontent with the Iranian authorities. Also, her confusion about the actions of the Israeli and American air forces. "They have killed people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," she says.
"Our rulers are backward, but it is the people who are paying the price"
"Our leaders are incompetent, but it's the people who are paying the price," adds Shali, another woman in her fifties.
The ruins of the Risalat area are replicated in other neighborhoods of the capital. The devastation far surpasses that caused by the 2025 conflict. "That war only lasted 12 days. About 8,000 homes were damaged. Now, in District 4 alone (Tehran has 22 districts), more than 8,000 houses were affected," says Hamidreza Gholamzadeh, a spokesperson for the Tehran mayor's office.
The official notes that nearly 7,000 people remain displaced and are staying in hotels in the metropolis, as their homes were destroyed.
"The municipality covers all the costs and gives them an extra amount for expenses," he adds. "Those who cannot return to their homes in the next six months are given a sum of money to rent a house."
Volunteer Support
The authorities have received support from thousands of volunteer groups to undertake the reconstruction of the homes damaged by the bombings. They call themselves "Jihadist Groups," although in this case, "holy war" (the meaning of "Jihad") is far removed from the concept of warfare with which it is usually associated.
These are groups like the one led by engineer and businessman Said Suleimani, who is trying to rehabilitate the apartment of 65-year-old Shokoofeh Sheikh Hosseini.
The group is clearing the floor of rubble, which they collect with a shovel and a basin. Two young men are measuring the dimensions of a window frame.
The residence is on the seventh floor, next to Gandhi Hospital, which was also devastated. The target of the air raid was a local television station located just across the street, Hosseini explains.
The incident resulted in viral images when a nurse, now a local hero, saved several newborn babies, pulling them from their incubators amidst the smoke and chaos generated by the explosion.
Hosseini, a resident of the area, filmed another group of four people evacuating a sick person using only a blanket.
The Iranian woman admits that she was also saved by "a divine hand." Shrapnel—hundreds of pieces of glass, metal, and stone—embedded in the walls, the refrigerator, and the ceiling of her home. The holes are still visible. She, being cautious, had sat down on the floor when she heard the planes flying overhead. "I thought they were very close. They were circling. The second I ducked down, the explosion happened."
Among Suleimani's colleagues are "teachers, clerics, and doctors." "First we clear the rubble, and then we repair the windows, doors, and walls. We have skills in masonry and carpentry," says the 45-year-old Iranian. According to his estimate, there are about 12,000 of these groups of "volunteers" in the country.
"I'm the director of a company with 570 employees. I'm away these days, but my workers understand. I'm still receiving my salary, and that's enough."
Another member of the repair brigade is 54-year-old engineer Tohere Mamandad. She comes every day after finishing her workday, and when she's done here, around eight in the evening, she goes to the squares where supporters of the regime express their support for the Islamic Republic.
"Some of these volunteer groups were formed in those nighttime gatherings. I joined when I met Suleimani there," he asserts.
Despite the desolation that pervades Hosseini's residence, it is one of those that should be repaired soon. "It has no structural damage," Suleimani points out.
Hamidreza Gholamzadeh estimates that 75% of the houses that have suffered this type of damage—"minor," according to his classification—have already been rehabilitated.
Propaganda
The air raid on the B1 is now being used by local authorities as a propaganda tool. During the journalist's visit, a choir of dozens of people—including several children—was filming a video about the ruins of the infrastructure. The director had them line up perfectly among the rubble scattered across what remains of the structure. A few meters away, the myriad twisted metal rods protruding from the pavement are visible.
The Karaj bridge wasn't even finished. "We started work five years ago, but we were one to two months short of completion," explains Mojtabah Haji Ghasemi, an engineer and member of the Karaj municipal council.
The project had required an investment of around $30 million, he added.
For Ghasemi, "Trump is setting new standards where infrastructure and everything else is no longer respected. His idea is that if you have power, you can bomb whatever you want. Attacking civilian infrastructure is a war crime."
Following the bombing on 2 April, Trump himself boasted about the action. "Iran's largest bridge has been destroyed. They will never use it again," he wrote online.
A prediction that local representatives vehemently reject. "We'll have to spend another 10 or 15 million on repairing it, but we'll do it. I think it will be finished in a year or two," Ghasemi insists.
Behind him, the members of the band repeat the same verses over and over again. "I will wash away your blood with my tears. I will rebuild you, my homeland, I will rebuild you," they can be heard saying.
There are those who prefer to leave the epic rhetoric aside. This is the case with Hamidreza Gholamzadeh, a representative of the Tehran City Council. "We haven't started rebuilding the completely destroyed houses - of which there are almost a thousand - because we are convinced they will attack again. It's better to wait and see what the total damage is," he states.