Travel Journal

LONDON – Terror struck in the heart of London on Thursday as explosions ripped through three subway trains and blasted the roof off a crowded red double-decker bus. At least 37 people were killed and more than 700 wounded in the deadliest attack on the city since the blitz in World War II.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair blamed Islamic extremists and said the bombings were designed to coincide with the opening in Scotland of a G-8 summit of the world’s most powerful leaders. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the bombings which came the day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics have the “hallmarks of an al-Qaida-related attack.”

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Police said there had been no warning and that the blasts at three subway stations went off within 26 minutes, starting at 8:51 a.m. in an Underground train just outside the financial district. Authorities initially blamed a power surge but realized it was a terror attack after the bus bombing near the British Museum at 9:47 a.m. less than an hour after the first explosion.

Trapped passengers in the Underground railway threw themselves on the floor, some sobbing. As subway cars quickly filled with smoke, people used their umbrellas to try to break the windows so that they could get air. Passengers emerged from the Underground covered with blood and soot. On the street, in a light rain, buses ferried the wounded, and medics used a hotel as a hospital.

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It was the attack that Britain had long feared, following al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, strikes in New York and Washington and Britain’s subsequent alliance with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Thursday’s explosions also recalled the March 11, 2004, terrorist bombs that killed 191 people on four commuter trains in Madrid, at a time when Spain was part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

Police were investigating whether suicide bombers were involved, and said they could not confirm the authenticity of a claim of responsibility from a group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe.” The group said the blasts were in retaliation for Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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In London, police said they could confirm at least 37 people had been killed, including two in the bus attack. Three U.S. law enforcement officials told The Associated Press at least 40 were killed. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy later said the death toll had risen to 50, citing a conversation with his British counterpart, but that could not immediately be confirmed.

Police said at least 700 were wounded, many of whom emerged bleeding and dazed from the Underground. Among them, at least 45 were in serious or critical condition, including amputations, fractures and burns, hospital officials told The Associated Press. Two young women from Knoxville, Tenn., were among those treated for injuries in the Underground, said their father, Dudley Benton.

The first blast caught a subway train between Moorgate and Liverpool Street stations, on the eastern fringe of London’s financial district. Seven died, police said. Moorgate is named for one of the gates in the city walls of London, of which few traces remain. Some people caught in the blast emerged from the Aldgate Station, near Jack the Ripper’s old haunts in Whitechapel.

The second bombing came five minutes later, on a second train deep underground between the King’s Cross and Russell Square stations. Police said 21 died. King’s Cross station, in one of the seediest parts of London, is the film setting for Platform 9 3/4 in the
Harry Potter films. Russell Square station serves Bloomsbury, the early 20th-century literary hotbed where Virginia Woolf and luminaries lived.

At 9:17 a.m., there was an explosion involving two or perhaps three trains around Edgware Road station. Seven people were killed, police said. Edgware Road is the heart of a thriving Arab community, and convenient to Hyde Park, scene of last weekend’s Live 8 concert.

The bus explosion, which killed at least two people, took place near Russell Square, an area of many modestly priced hotels popular with tourists. Also nearby is the home where Charles Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839.

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