Emergency personnel tend to an injured person close to the Palace of Westminster, London. Photo / AP
Emergency personnel tend to an injured person close to the Palace of Westminster, London. Photo / AP
Three school children on a trip from France are among the injured in the London terror attack, their teacher has told the Telegraph.
The teenagers were walking along Westminster Bridge when they were hit by the speeding Hydundai car, travelling at up to 80km/h.
The group's teacher said: "Three of us were hit, we don't know if they are dead or not. I cannot speak anymore, I don't know what to say."
One of the group - a young teenage girl - sat and wept openly on a bench a few hundred metres from the scene of devastation and destruction. She was wrapped in a foil blanket and being comforted by fellow pupils. She appeared to be having a panic attack.
A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry confirmed that three pupils from the Saint-Joseph high school in Concarneau, Brittany, were among the injured. French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later tweeted: "Solidarity with our British friends struck terribly, full support to the injured French pupils, their families and their classmates."
About 10 pupils from the school in Concarneau in Brittany, Western France, were on the bridge when the attack took place and three were 'hit by the vehicle", according to French reports. One is thought to have "ended up on the car bonnet".
Stephane Cariou, a reporter for local newspaper Le Telegramme, told BFM TV: "There were around 10 pupils. It's a group that left on Sunday night for London. They come from a private establishment in Concarneau.
He added: "When the the car arrived on the bridge, three of the young high-school pupils were hit and injured by the vehicle."
A journalist at BFMTV who spoke to parents at the school, said that the class was due to return to France on Thursday morning (local time). All three victims were boys, and "one is thought to have ended up on the car bonnet".
A counselling unit has been set up in London and the remaining pupils have returned to their youth hostel. Their families have been informed.
Five people have been killed in the attack, Scotland Yard's top anti-terror officer Mark Rowley has confirmed.
One eyewitness described seeing a body lying face down in the water, the victim having jumped into the Thames or been thrown into the river having been hit by the speeding car. A second woman was pulled out alive.
Colleen Anderson, a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital, said a woman was killed as the attacker drove a grey Hyundai i40 across Westminster Bridge before crashing it into railings then running through the gates of the Palace of Westminster.
Image 1 of 16: People stand near a crashed car and an injured person lying on the ground, right, on Bridge Street near the Houses of Parliament in London. Photo / AP
She said: "I confirmed one fatality. A woman. She was under the wheel of a bus. She died. Confirmed her death at the scene."
She also said she treated a police officer in his 30s with a head injury who had been taken to King's College Hospital. A Metropolitan Police spokesman later confirmed the officer stabbed outside Parliament had died. The attacker was shot as he approached a second officer.
Paramedics fought to save the life of the knifeman and that of his victim on the floor of the cobbled courtyard in front of Parliament. The Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood among those who rushed to help. The attacker later died.
At least one of the people being treated in the palace courtyard was wheeled away on a stretcher with their face covered.
The attack left a trail of destruction on the bridge and at the gate.
