London blasts cause chaos on Tube (8 Viewers)

Sep 28, 2002
13,975
#1
A number of Tube stations have been evacuated and lines closed after minor blasts in what Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair says is a "serious incident".
Sir Ian said only three Tube lines were still suspended and it was time London started to return to normal.

The minor explosions - just two weeks after blasts killed 56 - involved detonators only, a BBC reporter said.

In addition, a blast was reported on the top deck of a Number 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green.

There were no injuries and the bus suffered no structural damage.

Eyewitnesses heard bangs and saw abandoned rucksacks at the sites of the incidents at Warren Street, Shepherd's Bush Hammersmith and City line and Oval tube stations as well as the number 26 bus.

At Warren Street and Oval a man was seen running away from the scene.



Large areas around all four sites were cordoned off.


Casualties 'low'

One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator.

Sir Ian told reporters: "The bombs appear to be smaller than on the last occasion but we don't know the implications of all this yet."


Police in protective clothing were deployed at the bus site

He appealed for witnesses with mobile phone pictures of any of the incidents to send them to www.police.uk.

The BBC's Andrew Winstanley said devices had been found but appeared to have been dummies, containing no explosives.

Police said armed officers had been deployed to University College Hospital after an incident. A large area was cordoned off.

There were reports a memo had been circulated to staff to look out for a 6ft 2in black or Asian man with wires sticking out of his top.

The hospital has not received any casualties or been alerted to casualties.

A man was arrested near Downing Street by armed police and led away down Whitehall.

The whole of the Northern Line has been suspended, along with the Victoria Line, the Hammersmith and City line, Piccadilly and the Bakerloo line.


Police have set up cordons round the stations

A number of other stations were closed including Great Portland Street, Westminster, Waterloo, St Paul's and Oxford Circus tube stations, as well as Waterloo tube station and King's Cross Thameslink.

Tony Blair cancelled events in the afternoon and attended a meeting of the Cobra committee along with Sir Ian. Whitehall was briefly closed down.

London Underground went to an amber alert with trains taken to the next station and evacuated.

An eyewitness at Oval station said there had been a small bang, and a man had then run off when the Tube reached the station.

A spokesman for Stagecoach said the driver of the number 26 bus travelling through Shoreditch had heard a bang on upper deck, gone upstairs and seen the windows were blown out.

The bus driver was very shaken but said to be fine.

At Shepherd's Bush Hammersmith and City line station, police told reporters that a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran off.

Sosiane Mohellavi, 35, was travelling from Oxford Circus to Walthamstow when she was evacuated from a train at Warren Street.

"I was in the carriage and we smelt smoke - it was like something was burning. "Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking."

The BBC's Rory Barnett said there had been no smoke on the platform at Warren Street.


from bbc:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4703777.stm
 

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L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,790
#13
++ [ originally posted by Kaiser Franco ] ++
Hey if they take on to bomb Saint Peter Im all for it!
This just in: after almost 2000 years, Saint Peter is still dead. Stay tuned for more highlights at 11.
 

Chxta

Onye kwe, Chi ya ekwe
Nov 1, 2004
12,088
#16
Wars are fought by people who happily went into combat and ended up not knowing what the war was all about.

Tom, I am not for any war. I have seen war, I hope never to see it again.
 

Elnur_E65

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2004
10,848
#17
Just like two weeks ago, the NYSE has shown no reaction to the bombings. No increase in oil prices either.

I guess we are learning to coexist with terrorist attacks in our everyday life.

Hell, in Israel bombs blast and people die all the time...
 

Emma

Senior Member
Mar 4, 2004
3,753
#18
Nice work.

-------------------------


LONDON (Reuters) - Police shot a man dead at a London underground rail station on Friday during a hunt for bombers who struck two weeks after suicide attacks killed 52 rush-hour commuters.

The latest round of bombs, at Thursday lunchtime, caused chaos but killed no one, in an apparently failed bid to repeat the July 7 attacks.

Commuter Teri Godly told how she had stood next to the suspected suicide bomber on Friday morning before pandemonium erupted as armed police charged in.

"A tall Asian guy, shaved head, slight beard, with a rucksack got in front of me. Shortly after that, as I was about to get onto the train, eight or nine undercover police with walkie talkies and handguns started screaming at everyone to 'get out, get out'," she told Sky News television.

Witnesses spoke of panic as a man of Asian appearance wearing a heavy jacket vaulted over barriers at Stockwell station on Friday as he was chased, tackled then shot.

"I've never seen anything like it in my life. I saw them kill a man basically. I saw them shoot a man five times," witness Mark Whitby told BBC television.

"The other passengers were distraught. It was just mayhem, people were just getting off the Tube ... People running in all directions, looks of horror on their faces, screaming, a lot of screaming from women, absolute mayhem," he added.

Media reports said the man shot was a suspected suicide bomber -- possibly one of the four on the run after Thursday's attacks.

"We can confirm that just after 10 a.m. armed officers entered Stockwell Tube station. A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene," police said.

Police cordoned off streets around the station and took witnesses away for questioning.

Ben Anderson told of shouting and confusion before the shooting.

"People on the tube didn't know whether it was somebody with a gun, shooting, or the police. I didn't hear them identify themselves. I just heard the first shot, lots of screaming, and ran," he told BBC radio.

RESPONSIBILITY CLAIM

Another man spoke of a strange smell that seemed to be coming from a smoking bag on the train.

The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, an al Qaeda-linked group which claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings, posted a statement on an Islamist Web site on Friday claiming it carried out Thursday's attacks.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to London and former spy chief Prince Turki al Faisal said the attacks bore the classic touch of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

As forensics experts searched the three underground trains and a double-decker bus hit by small, near-simultaneous explosions on Thursday, police were called to a series of security alerts across the south of the city.

At one stage armed police briefly surrounded a mosque in east London after a bomb scare.

They were also examining the remains of the devices that failed to detonate, hoping to identify the explosives and find fingerprints or clues that might lead them to the bomb-makers.

As the manhunt intensified on Friday, commuters got back onto buses and underground trains, vowing to continue their normal routines despite a second wave of attacks in two weeks.

"I would still get the tube. If your number is up, your number is up," said Elisa Blackborough, travelling to work at a bank in the city of London financial district.

A union official warned however that hundreds of underground train drivers might refuse to work if there were more attacks.

In New York, commuters faced random searches of backpacks and packages as police stepped up checks.

MORE CLUES

Police have more clues from Thursday's attacks, including the unexploded bombs, witness reports and CCTV footage, than they had after the July 7 suicide bombs that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers and wounded 700.

Newspapers printed a picture of a damaged rucksack which they said held nails, nuts and bolts and had been abandoned on the upper deck of the bus that was attacked on Thursday.

Security experts warned there could be more attacks and police used the occasion to call for sweeping new powers, including being allowed to hold terrorism suspects for up to three months without charge.

The pound fell against the dollar and the euro after first reports of the shooting, while government bonds around the world edged higher on safe-haven buying.

Stocks markets across Europe, already unsettled by Thursday's attack, fell on the shooting news with the pan-European benchmark FTSEurofirst index down 0.3 percent by 1235 GMT.

Friday's newspapers focused on the "miraculous" escape by hundreds of commuters after the devices only partially detonated without causing any injuries.

The attacks appeared to be an attempt to copy the July 7 attacks, when four young British Muslims detonated rucksack bombs in three packed trains and a bus at morning rush hour.

Explosives experts said it was still unclear why the devices had failed to explode properly.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has rejected accusations that the invasion of Iraq has made Britain a target for Islamic militants, has appealed for calm.
 

Mr. Gol

Senior Member
Sep 15, 2004
3,472
#19
++ [ originally posted by Chxta ] ++
Wars are fought by people who happily went into combat and ended up not knowing what the war was all about.

Tom, I am not for any war. I have seen war, I hope never to see it again.
For a war there have to be two parties. These terrorists are really scattered across the planet, so I doubt they can unite against an army. The panic caused by terrorist attacks decreases with the day, so I doubt Bush and Blair will invade a country this time.
 

neath_lad

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2004
687
#20
the bombs were not as less powerful than last week but all 4 didnt go off because some of the materials used in the bomb went out of date. maybe the materials used in these bombs yesterday were from the same batch as the materials from 2 weeks ago. Now there is evidence like they had in madrid like dna, fingure prints. and the men pictures has been released tonight this story is so far from ending.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706421.stm
 

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