NICE, France (AP) — It was Bastille Day on the French Riviera.

A lawyer was strolling with her mother, friends and a colleague along the beachfront boulevard in Nice to celebrate France’s national day. Four young sisters from Poland had spent a day of sightseeing. Two Russian students were on a summer break. And a Texas family, on vacation with young children, was taking in some of Europe’s classic sights. The bright lights of the packed boardwalk glittered along the bay like a string of stars.

Those lights would mark a pathway of murder and destruction that night of July 14, 2016. Shortly after the end of a fireworks display, a 19-tonne (21 U.S.-ton) truck careered through the crowds for 2 kilometers (1¼ miles) like a snow plow, hitting person after person.

The final death toll was 86, including 15 children and adolescents, while 450 others were injured.

Eight people go on trial on Monday in a special French terrorism court accused of helping the attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who left a gruesome trail of crushed and mangled bodies across 15 city blocks. Bouhlel himself was killed by police the same night.

“It was like on a battlefield,” said Jean Claude Hubler, a survivor and an eyewitness to the horrific attack that holiday Thursday. He rushed to the boardwalk to help after hearing desperate screams of people, who had been cheering and laughing and dancing on the beach a minute before.