A German lawyer narrowly escaped death twice in the space of an hour when he fled Brussels airport after the bombings and got out of a taxi at Maelbeek metro station just as another bomb went off there.

Marc Schreiner flew in to Brussels from Berlin on Tuesday morning for a business trip when two blasts ripped through the airport building, leaving at 11 people dead and dozens more injured.

"I got out of the plane at 8 o'clock and when I got into the terminal building I saw hundreds of terrified people running around," he said. The blasts detonated by suicide bombers had just ripped through the airport building.

Mr Schreiner made his way through debris fallen from the terminal ceiling and past fire extinguishers spraying water and reached the front of the terminal.