London's fifty-six minutes of terror

Like millions of other Londoners, Michael Henning began his daily Tube journey to work with confetti from the joyous Olympic celebrations of the day before still strewn about the streets.

Heading from Kensington to his offices in east London, Henning watched as fellow passengers on the packed Circle Line train scanned newspapers full of good news for once, proclaiming victory in the battle for the 2012 Games.

"London's Triumph," proclaimed one headline. "Gold Rush," said another. There may have been a light drizzle as Londoners made their usual trek into work. But that did not matter: London was on a roll, and the hangover felt good.

Then, it began.

Tube trains ground to a halt all over London. Drivers announced over on-board tannoys that a "power surge" on the track had closed down the network.

Mobile phones started buzzing with startling rumours: that there were explosions across the city. Aldgate, Kings Cross, Edgware Road - all were said to have been at the centre of "incidents". Then word swept the city by phone and email that a bus had exploded in central London.

Before the rush hour was over, any dreams of Olympic glory had been long forgotten. Terrorists had struck, creating a nightmare as three co-ordinated bomb attacks hit London's claustrophobic and crowded peak hour underground trains, two of which were in tunnels, causing dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

A fourth bomb - the possibility remained last night that it was a suicide bomber - exploded on a crowded bus, leading to more deaths and injuries.

By yesterday, 37 people were confirmed dead. More than 700 had been injured, some terribly.

Fate saved Henning, 39, a Lloyds banker, who missed his usual train. When he tried to get into one carriage of another, he was forced out by the sheer weight of numbers, and moved to the next one.

At 8.51am, the carriage he had tried to enter exploded.

"There was a flash of light and everything went black," Henning said. "You couldn't see; you could just hear shouting and screaming. We managed to find a way out.

"What we left behind was absolute carnage."

It was the first successful bomb attack on the Underground in its 142-year history.

Two more blasts on the Tube were to follow in the next 26 minutes. Then, as commuters reeled from one of the explosions and looked for other ways to get to work, a packed bus exploded.

There had been no intelligence indicating an attack was imminent. Nor was there any warning. Police were investigating whether it was the first time a suicide bomber had operated on British soil - and there were warnings that the current crisis may not yet be over.

THE entire system, the world's largest and oldest underground network, was shut down and remained closed as rescue workers continued to toil in the carriages mangled by the explosions, attempting to retrieve the remaining bodies.

It quickly became apparent that al Qaeda - or those acting in its name - had finally decided, as many had predicted it would, to attack London at its most vulnerable point. A claim of responsibility was made on the Al-Qal'ah - The Fortress - internet site, by a previously unheard of group calling themselves the Secret Organisation Group of al Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe.

Although police and emergency services responded quickly with a carefully prepared major incident plan, the attacks occurred only a few weeks after the security level in the capital had been downgraded to one of the lowest levels since September 11. Questions were being asked about how such an attack could have occurred when the G8 summit was taking place in Gleneagles, Scotland - when police and security services might have been expected to be on maximum alert.

The London attacks are likely to lead to demands for tougher anti-terrorism laws - particularly the introduction of identity cards. They left Muslim leaders, who condemned the bombings, deeply anxious about the relations between their communities and the rest of Britain.

In Gleneagles, a distraught-looking British Prime Minister insisted that the G8 meeting would continue: "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 impose extremism on the world.

"Whatever they do it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world."

Tony Blair's words were echoed shortly afterwards by United States President George W. Bush: "It's a war on terror for us all."

He added: "We will not yield to these people - we will not yield to the terrorists".

LONDON'S anguish began - as in New York in September 2001 and in Madrid in March 2004 - just before 9am.

At 8.51, a Circle Line train heading into Liverpool Street station, the huge complex which acts as the confluence for a number of underground lines as well as overground lines from north and east London, carrying commuters in and out of the City, was rocked by a huge explosion.

Terry O'Shea, 42, a construction worker from Worcester, said: "I was in the third carriage, the one behind the one where the explosion was. There was a loud bang and we felt the train shudder. Then smoke started coming into the compartment. It was terrible. People were panicking, but they calmed down after one or two minutes. As they led us down the track past the carriage where the explosion was, we could see the roof was torn off it, and there were bodies on the track."

Jack Linton, 14, from Hawkswell, Essex, who suffered cuts to his face, said: "There was a massive explosion, smoke and flames. My carriage must have been two away from where it was. Everybody got on the floor. Then eventually the smoke cleared and we managed to open the central doors down the train to go to the back of it before they walked us along the track past the train to the station. The middle of the train was blown out and there were people on the track. I've got glass in my hair and my pockets and my ear hurts."

Many people were trapped for up to 40 minutes.

Sarah Reid, 23, a student doing work experience, was on the carriage next to the one struck by the explosion. "I was on the train and there was a fire outside the carriage window and then there was a sudden jolt which shook us forward. The explosion was behind me. Some people took charge. We went out of the back of the carriage." Describing being led away from the scene, she said: "A carriage was split in two, all jagged, and without a roof, just open. I saw bodies, I think." Seven people are believed to have died on that train.

Within a few minutes, at 8.56, the underground was rocked by a second blast, a few kilometres to the north-west, where the southbound Piccadilly Line sweeps in from north London.

Underneath the elegant streets of Bloomsbury, between the Kings Cross and Russell Square stations, another bomb exploded; it is believed that at least 21 people died. Reaching this deep-lying Tube line became a much more difficult task for the rescue workers than at Liverpool Street, where the older Circle and Metropolitan lines were built much closer to the surface. Passengers were trapped from more than two hours.

While the emergency services were rushing towards both scenes, there was a third explosion, at 9.17am and several kilometres to the west, at Edgware Road station, this time on another Circle Line train heading west. The explosion ripped through a wall in the tunnel and blew a hole in a train on another rail track. Seven died in this explosion.

Simon Corvett, 26, from Oxford, was on the eastbound train. He said: "All of sudden there was this massive huge bang. It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered. The glass did not actually fall out of the windows, it just cracked. The train came to a grinding halt, everyone fell off their seats.

"There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke. You couldn't really breathe and you couldn't see what was happening. The driver came on the tannoy [speaker system] and said 'We have got a problem, don't panic'."

Corvett, joined other passengers to force open the train doors with a fire extinguisher. Dozens of them escaped down the tunnel. His face covered in soot, he said the carriage on the other track was destroyed. "You could see the carriage opposite was completely gutted. There were some people in real trouble."

By now, the underground network was rapidly grinding to a halt as trains were halted and backed up in stations.

Fear, panic and confusion began to spread through the system as survivors staggered out of stations to be met by scores of ambulance and fire workers.

Just after 9.30am, Transport for London took the decision to close the system, evacuating scores of stations.

Still not sure of what had occurred, senior Scotland Yard police officers were still working on the assumption that some kind of catastrophic power surge was to blame.

What happened next changed all that. At 9.51, in Tavistock Square, just south of the Euston Road, a number 30 bus travelling from Hackney to Marble Arch - which had been boarded by a number of people who had been evacuated from the underground - was ripped apart by a huge explosion. It remained unclear exactly how many people had died, but the number is believed to be in double figures.

Eyewitnesses spoke of seeing bodies flung out of the upper deck. Ayobami Bello, 46, a security guard at the nearby London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, said: "It was terrible - the bus went to pieces. There were so many bodies on the floor. The back was completely gone. It was blown off completely and a dead body was hanging out and there were dead bodies on the road. It was a horrible thing."

He said other bodies sat slumped in their bus seats, some with arms and legs missing: "I can't believe it. I can't even believe I survived it. There was panic and everyone was running for their lives. I saw a lady coming towards me soaked in blood. Everyone was in confusion."

Cycle courier Andrew Childes, 36, from London, was on his way to the British Medical Association's headquarters in Tavistock Place. He said: "I heard a bang, a thudding deep sound. There was a big cloud of grey smoke. I was about 250m away at the time and I stopped dead in my tracks and didn't go any further. I waited for a bit and then went to see what had happened. The bus was just splintered metal, and it was all bent over. The top part of the bus was completely exposed, as if the roof had been ripped off it."

Some BMA staff came out to treat the injured, and their building was turned into an impromptu casualty station.

AS news of the explosions spread, there was panic, transport chaos and confusion across central London and parts of the City.

Evacuees from the underground system attempted to board buses to either return home or reach their workplaces, only to find them stuck in traffic and, eventually, they were ordered to stay where they were. Mainline trains into London were halted and the mobile telephone networks collapsed under the pressure of thousands of calls. Some switched to take emergency calls only.

Police and emergency services implemented the major incident plan, putting hospitals throughout the capital on alert and summoning help from adjacent authorities. At the London Hospital on the Mile End Road, just a short distance from Aldgate, more than 100 people were treated and air ambulances lined up to land on its helicopter pad. Fleets of commandeered London buses took dozens of slightly injured people to hospital.

The bombs were condemned by the nation's religious leaders, while many London clergy turned out to help with the rescue operations. Steve Nichols, London Underground chaplain, was counselling the emergency services in St Botolphs Church near Aldgate East station.

He said: "There was one poor lady who had been impaled by one of the poles in the train and she was still alive. The people have been picking up various body parts. It is obviously very grim and there aren't really words to describe it. I guess you could say I've been caring for the carers."

In Gleneagles, Blair, Bush and the other world leaders were informed by their aides. After his first of three statements of the day, an anguished looking Blair flew by helicopter back to London.

In a televised statement from Downing St, he promised intense police and security service action to bring the bombers to justice and he repeated his "profound condolences" to the families of the victims.

"It is through terrorism that the people that have committed these terrible acts express their values and it is right at this moment that we demonstrate ours," he said.

"I think we all know what they are trying to do. They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, trying to stop us from going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not, and they must not succeed.

"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."

Blair later visited Scotland Yard's control room and also chaired a meeting of the Cobra Committee, the Cabinet Office body which oversees such crises; the committee was convened earlier in the day, chaired by Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary.

Initially, Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police announced that there had been six explosions, but it is believed that this was because of the confusion from the bombs being in the tunnels between Russell Square and Kings Cross and between Liverpool Street and Aldgate. Sir Ian warned the public to "stay where they were".

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, still in Singapore where he had spent the previous night celebrating the success of the London bid, issued a strong condemnation of the attacks.

HE said: "I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners. That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith - it's mass murder. We know what the objective is. They seek to divide London."

The London Olympic bid committee remained defiant that the Games would not be affected but said that they were "devastated". Keith Mills, chief executive of London's bid team, said "no city in the world can escape terrorism these days".

The attacks also had their affect on the City, where the FTSE 100 Index plunged more than 200 points in the immediate aftermath.

Amid chaos on the roads, with buses operating a limited service and Tube lines closed, police and security officials warned that they could not be sure the attacks were finished.

Michael Henning was one of the lucky ones.

After treatment for head and eye injuries at the Royal London Hospital, he left for home, still in shock that he had survived. "It was unbelievable. I could have been killed. I just can't believe what I've gone though today. I'm just so very, very lucky."

- Independent