The death toll from the bomb attacks on the London transport system has risen to 52, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday.
”The latest advice I have is that the death toll is currently 52, some hundreds injured. In the nature of things, sadly, the death toll is likely to climb,” Howard told reporters in Canberra after a briefing with his top counter-terrorism officials.
The Australia leader’s remarks point to a far higher toll than the latest official British estimate of 37. He did not say where the information came from.
Howard said his compatriots felt deep sympathy for their British friends, particularly since so many Australians had for generations been travelling to London.
”This brutal, indiscriminate, unforgivable attack on innocent people going about their daily lives is a mark of the depraved character of the people who carried these out,” he said.
Cellphones capture London horror
Cellphone footage captured just seconds after the four attacks on London’s transport network brought home the full horror of the worst terror attacks the British capital has ever known.
Dozens of petrified passengers at the three railway stations and on the bus attacked in Thursday’s early-morning blasts, which killed at least 37 people, reached as if in a reflex action for their phones not just to call loved ones but to record the carnage virtually as it happened.
Television stations showed video and stills footage of dozens of early-morning commuters desperately clawing their way to safety after bombs wreaked havoc at Kings Cross, where at least 21 died, Liverpool Street, where at least seven died, and Edgware Road, where at least seven more were killed.
Further footage showed dozens of dazed passengers sprawled on the ground after another explosion ripped apart a number 30 double-decker bus on its way from east London’s Hackney to central Marble Arch.
The footage clearly showed the blackened faces of passengers who had managed to escape, as well as one woman curled up in agony in the foetal position on the pavement, and blood spattered nearby buildings.
Ironically, actual calls were jammed at first as hundreds of people caught up in the bloody mayhem tried to contact loved ones with operators logging more than a million calls as the system went into meltdown.
Deprived of the opportunity to make calls in those first terrible moments, some commuters instead elected to make an historical record.
One, Alex Chadwick, took pictures of the first ever attack on the London underground with his cellphone showing passengers covering their mouths as acrid smoke swirled around them.
Another picture showed a man standing nearby likewise capturing the moment as blast survivors headed for the exit, exhorted by a London underground worker to ”keep on moving down, please.”
Civil servant Adam Stacey recounted being trapped on the train bombed at Kings Cross, where at least 21 people were killed.
”I decided to take a photograph in the carriage. I wanted to remind myself that it had actually all happened.
”When we emerged from the tunnel the scene was like a disaster movie,” Stacey told mass daily The Sun.
There was speculation that the British authorities might have blocked cellphone signals on the transport network fearing further blasts which could potentially be set off by a cellphone, as happened in the Madrid train bombings last year, which killed 191 people.
”I’ve heard that the mobile network is down,” said terrorism expert Michael Clarke.
”This could be because the MO [modus operandi] in Madrid was by setting off devices with mobile phones.”
In Madrid, although no video footage emerged from within the four trains attacked, Spanish television later broadcast harrowing audio footage from one women’s cellphone which captured the moment one of ten bombs went off, prompting bloodcurdling screams before the line went dead.
A spokesperson for cellphone operator Vodafone, referring to some customers’ difficulty to make calls in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, said: ”The network is under full capacity as a certain amount has been dedicated to the emergency services so they can talk to each other.
”That will have an effect on customers.”
Fear and frustration
Millions of London commuters faced an agonising journey to work on Friday. Parts of the transport network were still frozen after bomb blasts hit three points on the underground and wrecked a double-decker bus in a string of attacks timed to kill a maximum number of commuters.
Most of London’s underground services were to run again after the entire network — 12 lines and 275 stations — was shut down on Thursday following the blasts.
On a normal weekday, 6,3-million journeys are made on London’s buses and a further three million on the underground, though police advised on Friday commuters to reconsider going into work if their journey was going to be too problematic.
Many others were set to work from home and avoid facing the commute altogether.
Some companies were to lay on shuttle buses and taxis for their workers, with others organising car sharing to ship people in and out of the capital.
Transport for London (TfL) said on its website: ”Additional TfL staff will be on duty across the London underground and London buses networks providing passengers with the latest travel information.
”We are encouraging our passengers and staff to remain vigilant, to question who owns items that remain unattended and to report any unattended items or suspicious activity to transport staff or the police.”
The sections of those lines hit remain closed as police continue their investigations at the scene.
TfL predicted delays across all underground services. Buses, suspended in central London on Thursday, were set to run as normal though routes crossing the areas hit by the attacks will be disrupted.
All London’s mainline railway termini were to open as normal except King’s Cross, which serves the English Midlands, the northeast and Scotland, which was to remain closed to long-distance trains.
Its underground station, London’s busiest in terms of passengers each year, saw 21 killed in one of the blasts.
Millions struggled slowly home on Thursday evening with limited bus services and long queues of people desperate to get home.
Many workers had the problem of even reaching the main line station they required without additional public transport.
Taxis were in extremely short supply, meaning many people left their offices early and headed home on foot.
Long queues formed for river boat services as people considered any route possible to leave the city.
The Salvation Army, a Christian charity which works closely with the homeless, opened three of its churches and said stranded commuters could sleep there before returning to work Friday.
Hunt for bombers under way
A massive hunt was under way on Friday for the bombers. Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to track down the perpetrators of the worst terror attack ever in Britain.
”There, of course, will now be the most intense police and security service action to make sure we bring those responsible to justice,” the grim-faced British leader told the nation in a televised address.
Scotland Yard spokesperson Alan Crookwood said the investigation was ”a very high priority”.
Three explosions tore apart packed underground trains and one peeled the top off a number 30 double decker bus in 56 minutes of morning mayhem on Thursday.
Although anti-terrorist investigators said it was too early to speculate, several British newspapers were convinced that the attack on the bus had been the work of a suicide bomber.
”The number 30 suicide bomber,” said the Daily Mirror tabloid, the theme taken up by several other dailies who quoted passengers that survived as saying they had seen a dark-skinned man rummaging in a bag seconds before the blast.
Blood-spattered and crying, thousands of survivors of the four attacks staggered into the streets.
The entire underground rail network was shut down and terror replaced the euphoria of a day earlier when London was named the host of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The synchronised blasts, detonated without warning, occurred within minutes of each other, in an eerie echo of last year’s Madrid train bombings, blamed on Islamic extremists.
- 8.51am: A blast hits between Liverpool Street and Aldgate underground stations, killing seven people.
- 8.56am: An explosion detonates in the underground near the central King’s Cross station. A further 21 die.
- 9.17am: A device explodes at Edgware Road underground station, the western part of the centre of the city, slicing through a carriage, a wall and, police say, into two other trains. Seven people are killed.
- 9.47am: An explosion blows apart the number 30 double-decker bus from east London’s Hackney to central Marble Arch. Two die.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Osama bin Laden’s global terrorist network, al-Qaeda, was likely responsible.
”These outrages bear the hallmarks of al-Qaeda related terrorist cells,” Straw said.
‘Our spirit will never be broken’
The country reacted with defiance.
”They should not and they must not succeed,” said Blair, who interrupted a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland to fly London for a meeting of the government’s emergency committee and to speak to the country.
”When they try to intimidate us we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm.”
Memories of the World War II blitz attacks on London overcame the press.
”Our spirit will never be broken,” blared the front-page of The Sun, the country’s best-selling tabloid. ”If the terrorists want a fight, by God, we’ll give it them.”
The Times‘ editorial expressed ”revulsion and resolve.”
Witnesses related horrific scenes.
”There was a big bang and then all the ash. I could not breathe. It was falling down everywhere and over everything,” said Loyita Worley, who was in a carriage when a blast hit near Liverpool Street.
”Some people started to panic but most were okay. We tried to open the doors but the doors were fixed shut and the ash was settling everywhere,” she said, and then came the walking wounded.
”There was blood dripping off them, they were all white.”
The bus explosion also caused mayhem.
”It was terrible. The bus went to pieces. There were so many bodies on the floor,” said Ayobami Bello (46) a security guard at the nearby London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine.
A previously unknown group which calls itself the Organisation of al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe claimed it caused the blasts and threatened similar attacks against Italy, Denmark and other ”Crusader” states with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a statement posted on the internet, but which could not be authenticated, it said: ”Heroic mujahedins carried out a sacred attack in London, and here is Britain burning in fear, terror and fright in the north, south, east and west.”
The group said the attacks were ”in response to the massacres carried out by Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Masses of Londoners calmly walked home with most public transport, including the underground network of 12 lines and 275 stations used by three million people daily, having been suspended.
Meanwhile, the flag flew at half mast over Buckingham Palace.
”The dreadful events in London this morning have deeply shocked us all,” Queen Elizabeth II said in a statement.
At the G8 summit in Scotland, leaders vowed support for Britain.
”We condemn utterly these barbaric attacks. We send our profound condolences to the victims and their families.
United States President George Bush promised to wage his ”war on terror.”
”They have such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks. The war on terrorism is on,” Bush told reporters at the summit venue, the luxury golf resort of Gleneagles.
In the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff raised the threat level for mass transit and train systems to code orange or ”high.”
Security was stepped up in New York and Washington, still jittery after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terror network, while the nationwide US rail system, Amtrak, also said it raised its security alert level.
Governments across Europe beefed up security in airports, rail stations and public transport systems.
Former New York mayor Rudolfo Guiliani, who was visiting London, meanwhile recalled the September 11 attacks on the United States.
”It brought back a tremendous number of memories of September 11 — a surprise attack on innocent people,” Guiliani told the BBC. – Sapa-AFP