UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke said several explosions in central London had caused “terrible injuries”.
“The health services are in support to deal with the terrible injuries that there have been,” Clarke told reporters outside Downing Street.
Number 10 said it was “still unsure” whether the explosions were a terrorist attack and although casualties were reported, no further details were yet available.
Ministers are meeting to clarify the situation and the government will make a statement later, Leader of the House Geoff Hoon told the Commons.
One caller to BBC Five said his friend had seen “the bus ripped open like a can of sardines and bodies everywhere”.
And the Press Association quoted union officials as saying sources had told them there had been at least one explosive device on the Underground.
British Transport Police said incidents took place at Aldgate, Edgware Road, King’s Cross, Old Street and Russell Square stations.
Scotland Yard confirmed they were assisting with a “major incident” and said there were casualties.
This is bad news indeed. I’ll be interested in hearing whom they suspect. I doubt the news reports of a “power surge”. Maybe for the tube but not a bus.
Hopefully Redwolf will let us know where she’s at.
Man this crap pisses me off. This already has the earmarks of a well thought out plan.
My heartfelt best wishes for all of you over there. Martin I hope your family is OK.
Been watching the news for the last hour or two. Five tube stations were involved, they suspect at least one explosive device on the tubes. This resulted in 90 injuries at Aldgate and presumably more at other places.
The tube passengers were evacuated, presumed there was a power failure (which happens sometimes and passengers had no way of knowing how widespread it was) and started piling onto busses. A few minutes later three busses exploded.
There have been a few pics of one of the busses near Russell Square, the roof of the second level is completely torn off and it looked like maybe a side was warped too.
His dad just contacted me, they are fine. Some of them were going to go into London today but when they got to the local tube station the system had already shut down.
Yeah, that thought occurred to me too. The moment when the bus bomb was announced felt just the the moment when the pentagon plane was announced…up until then it could have been a horrible, if unlikely, accident.
Gary, there was mention on another message board of “bombs found and isolated in brighton and swindon”…heard anything about that?
Re: lockdown…no tubes, no buses running in all of London. Trains coming from outside london are being stopped before they reach the capitol. If you want to get anywhere today it’s by car or foot power, but I suspect you wouldn’t get too far in a car. However, I hear they are lifting the congestion charge today..
If they don’t sort this out by 5:30pm, at least I have my rollerblades with me!
It crossed my mind that if this is a terrorist attack, then just after the 2012 win was announced yesterday would have been the time to do it. That would have taken the wind out of our sails in a hurry.
Sound bites from Blair’s speech, fast as I could type them:
it’s reasonably clear that there have been a series of terrorist attacks in london
Blair is leaving G8 in a few hours to go down to London, and then returning to G8 in the evening, but the G8 meetings will continue in his absence.
it’s particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems in africa and the environment
reasonably apparent that this has been timed to coincide with the opening of the G8
it is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to bring extremism to the world
They will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations around the world.
He’s leaving the G8 summit to come down to London and get first hand reports of the events, and will return tonight. The summit will continue in his absense.
He surmises that the attacks are timed to interfere with the G8 Summit.