Bomb expert called to defuse package on Putney bus
An explosives expert was called to a suspect package on a local bus yesterday afternoon. The alarm was raised shortly after a series of explosions on public transport around London, two weeks after the capital suffered major terrorist attacks.
Roads were closed and local schoolchildren were escorted through safe routes away from Elliott School before it emerged that the abandoned rucksack was safe.
Tony Blair has urged Londoners to be calm and to get back to business as normal following a series of minor explosions across
Chiswick mother Becky Hamilton, who works in Bush Studios, a rehearsal studio in the arches directly underneath the Shepherd's Bush station of the Hammersmith and City Line when she was told to evacuate.
She said, "We work underneath the station in the arches and police came in and kind of told us to get out basically, just to drop everything and get out. We have left all our cars and everything in there."
She continued: "We didn't hear any noise but we didn't hear trains for about a good half-an-hour before and they just told us to get out and we ran out. When we first came out of the arches we just mingled around but now they are telling us to get back (to the moving police cordon)."
Shepherd's Bush Green was sealed off with police tape and crowds congregated on either side of the park. The area was closed to traffic with vehicles being diverted off the main Shepherd's Bush roundabout.
Eye witness reports from Warren Street give no indication that the incident there is as serious as those which occurred on 7th July. Initial indications are that no explosives are involved but that detonators were set off causing passengers to activate alarms. One person was reportedly injured at Warren Street, that is the only casualty reported so far. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing a detonator.
An eyewitness at Oval station said there had been a small bang, and a man had then run off when the Tube reached the station.
Transport for London have suspended three lines; the Hammersmith & City, Victoria and Northern.
Emergency service personnel have responded to reports of an incident on a bus in Hackney Road E2, junction near Colombia Road, E2, Route 26. The bus had its windows blown out but there were no injuries.
Sir Ian Blair the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has appealed for witnesses with mobile phone pictures of any of the incidents to send them to www.police.uk. It is suggested that people travel across London as little as possible at the moment.
July 22, 2005 10:34 PM