Told Sky News Initial accounts of the lunchtime bombings seemed confused.
At Oval station, on the Northern Line, a police officer who spoke in anonymity
according to police regulations, said a man threw a package or backpack into a
subway car just before the train moved off. While the train was still in the station
“the device exploded,” and the attacker escaped.
“As you can imagine the train was pretty packed,” the officer said.
It was lunchtime and it was pretty surprising that no one was hurt
At Shepherd’s Bush station, where the subway line runs above ground, there
was no immediate indication from the dataset police what had happened.
At Warren Street, Ivan McCracken, a passenger,
from a fellow passenger that “a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack
suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack.”
On board the No. 26 bus – a red doubledecker like the No. 30 bus blown up on
July 7 – there were conflicting reports about the intensity of a reported explosion.
Mark Bond, apassenger, said in a broadcast interview that there had been a noise
from the rear of the bus.
“Everyone froze for a couple of minutes,” he said
“Then everyone just rushed out.
It can hit anyone at any time anywhere. I feel very unsafe.”
A police officer patrolling several hundred yards from the bus, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said people were why phone lists are viral accelerators being warned to stay indoors and were
being kept away from the bus because explosives experts were “looking to see what’s
round the detonator.” He declined to give further details.
At the Oval station, some passengers said the attack had left people feeling powerless.
“You don’t want to start feeling scared to be in your own city,” said Joseph Durrin,
33, a graphic designer. “It’s scary to think terrorists might still be here. There is
nothing you could really do about that. How can you stop someone taking public transportation?”
Tom McFarlon, 36, another graphic designer, said:
“If people want to do it, they do it.” Near Warren Street station, Chris Coupe, a 38-year-old fitness instructor from
Manchester, said: “A certain amount of paranoia is kicking in. When people see packages they pay special attention to it.” Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, a former intelligence review business chief, told the BBC that similarities with the July 7 attacks lay in the “geographic pattern and the same transport systems” chosen to be attacked. The differences, she said, were that the attacks today were “not as competently planned, not as well planned, not as well executed.”