This is a terrorist attack.
The BBC are reporting the explosions as the fault of power surges, but according to my own sources in London Underground, this is highly unlikely. And power surges don’t happen on buses either. I am trying to contact other friends and sources in London, but every phone is not acccessible. The explosions are in Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Edgware Road, Old Street and Russell Square. A bus in Tavistock has definately been blown up.
From my own sources in London:
the major lines are affected are the Hammersmith and City, Circle, Central and Metropolitan Lines.
2 bags found under seats
body parts seen in underground
the entire underground has been shut down
all intercity services have been halted.
100 people per carriage at peak times, 800 people per train, or thereabouts at the times involved.
More as I get it.
Update: 10.55am
All other trains on the underground have been evacuated, there are no reports of trains stuck between stations.
Mobile phones are not working for large parts of London, probably due to loads ton the network.
Update: 11.10am
Having watched the pictures of the bus explosion on Tavistock Square, the entire top half of the bus appears to have been blown off, one could speculate that this is a Madrid-style attack. All bus services in London have stopped. Casualties have been numbered at 20, but I think the figure is likely to be alot higher. The BBC London website, and the Guardian websites are getting huge loads.
Update 11.23:
Tony Blair to make statement at midday.
Update 12.54
Charles Clarke due to make statement at 1.15pm. I guess the one advantage London has in tracking down terrorists is that there are cameras literally everywhere in London, either for security or the congestion charge. Reports from Washington DC suggest that public transport systems are being actively searched.
Update 13.08
According to my London Underground sources there are people trapped on the Picadilly Line between Russell Square and King’s Cross. The problem facing emergency services is the depth, at that point the tunnel, is between 150 and 200 feet down. People who have visited London may know these stations for their very long escalators.
The tunnels themselves are also quite narrow, which could mean the tunnels themselves may have been affected by the blast. The emergency services are moving extractors down to take out smoke in the tunnels.
This particular line is extremely congested, and was so at the time of the explosion. Becase the line is so deep, the casualty figures will likely remain low for some time, but then dramatically rise. If two trains were involved it could mean as much as 1600 people on board, with unknown figures for people who managed to escape.
Update 13.48
Check out the UK blogs aggregator for reaction and stories about the events.
Caoimhe points to Chris who has a tranlsation of a claim of responsibility from an Islamist website, bare in mind this is just one of many claims that will come:
Announcement on London’s Operation 7/7/2005
Jamaat al-Tandheem Al-Sierri (secret organization group)
Organization of Qaeda’t al-Jihad in EuropeIn the name of God the most merciful…
Rejoice the nation of Islam, rejoice nation of Arabs, the time of revenge has come for the crusaders’ Zionist British government.
As retaliation for the massacres which the British commit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mujahideen have successfully done it this time in London.
And this is Britain now burning from fear and panic from the north to the south, from the east to the west.
We have warned the brutish governments and British nation many times.
And here we are, we have done what we have promised. We have done a military operation after heavy work and planning, which the mujahideen have done, and it has taken a long time to ensure the success of this operation.
And we still warn the government of Denmark and Italy, all the crusader governments, that they will have the same punishment if they do not pull their forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
So beware.
Thursday 7/7/2005
Jamaat al-Tandheem Al-Sierri (secret organization group)
Organization of al Qaeda’t al-Jihad in Europe.
Update: 14.42
Flickr have a pool for photos from London
Technorati is filling up with posts.
The bus has been identified: A Transport for London spokeswoman says the bus hit by the explosion was a number 30, travelling from Hackney to Marble Arch.
Update: 14:48
Moblog photos have started appearing.
The Guardian’s newsblog is one of the best sources for those of you not watching TV
Update: 15:46
The BBC have pulled out all the stops to stream TV over the net, works better than even on normal news days.
Update: 15:48
Terminal 3 in Heathrow is being evacuated
Comments
9 responses to “Bombs in London”
That’s terrible…i just heard about this…
This is horrific.
And I hope Bush restrains himself. This isn’t the time to create an abgry backlash, as happened in Madrid when some tried to hijack an atrocity for political gain.
I think the whole world knows by now that angry backlashes are Bush’s speciality. I’ll be amazed if we don’t get another “attack on democracy” speech from him with Blair tagging along within a week.
Unless of course whoever claims responsibility doesn’t live in an oil rich country…
horrible morning.
also worried about bush & blair spewing rhetoric.
london mayor ken livingstone gave a wonderful & inspiring response from singapore this morning. at least one leader has his head about him.
archbishop of canterbury spoke – he’d been meeting with muslim leaders at the time. a uk muslim leader spoke on radio five live and condemned the actrocities outright and called on people to help track down the “murderers” as he called them.
not impressed with the mobloggin … ppl shd be getting the hell out of there like the emergency services tell ’em to do, not getting in the way by turning round and taking fotographs.
Been at work for a couple of hours now, seems like londoners are getting on with things. The roads are busy but moving, there’s a tube service running on a number of lines (albeit with some delays), buses running except in certain parts of central london. “Business as usual” is a phrase I’ve heard a number of people using.
There will be some who decide not to make it in, but I think they’ll be in the minority. Fingers crossed there’s no further attacks. I would, however, be slightly concerned for those with a darker skin tone – there will be a lot of scared, angry people travelling on public transport today.
Man, I hope whoever was behind that horrible thing will be severly punished.
Tony Blair has just said that “this attack is not in response to Britain’s involvement in Iraq”
How the hell does he know ? It’s bloody obvious that he is using the same rhetoric that he has the police and “intelligence” services use in this country, i.e. don’t cause panic at all costs.
Well it’s too late for that Tony your actions in Iraq and other places, not to mention your poodling attitude towards America has brought about this catastrophe and the others which will follow.
Don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting otherwise
o met one girl who had i family meber injurd in the bombing. :,-( [Crying]
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa, zebras being a fine example.
god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management –
3. Mafia (evil) aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (“On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
Survival of the favored.