Witnesses see two men
flee tube stations
By GAVIN HAYCOCK in London
22jul05
WITNESSES saw at least two men running away from London underground stations today shortly after four explosions caused panic on the capital's transport system for the second time in a fortnight.
The blasts hit three underground trains and a double-decker bus, as did the bombs that killed more than 50 people in the city on July 7.
Hugues Caillat, a 25-year-old DJ, was at one of the stations, Oval in south London, seconds after a blast there.
"I was in the ticket hall," he told reporters. "I heard screaming, then seconds later a man ran past me. He crossed over the streets by the park. He was screaming 'what is wrong with these people!' and ran off."
Caillat described the man as having an Asian appearance, aged about 18 or 19 and wearing a short-sleeved navy blue top, jeans and trainers.
Hugo Palit, a witness at Warren Street in central London, said he saw a man rushing out of the station shortly after a blast.
"I heard a shout and scream," he told BBC television. "Suddenly I saw a man coming out and people chasing him. He came out of the station. He was running, He was a little bit confused, looking right and left."
Michelle Sinclair, a 24-year-old who works in IT training, said she was in a restaurant near the station.
She said she saw police arrested a man in his early twenties with dark skin and dark hair. They searched his red rucksack before bundling him into a police car and driving him away.
A woman who gave her name as Andrea told the BBC she had been on the train at Oval which was hit by the blast, and said "it sounded like a balloon had popped but a lot louder".
"There was something on the floor and you could see something had exploded," she said.
"They opened the door so we could move through to the next carriage and there was a guy still standing in the carriage.
"And then we pulled into Oval, we all got off on the platform and the guy just ran and started running up the escalator.
"Everyone was screaming for someone to stop him. He ran past me and I kind of stood in one of the alcoves and he ran out of the station. In fact he left a bag on the train."
The explosions, which occurred exactly two weeks after the worst peacetime attacks in London's history, inevitably sparked panic before people realised they were not as serious as the blast that ripped through the city's transport system on July 7.
"I smelled the smell, this terrible smell," said Ingrid Guyon, an evacuee from Oval tube station, "I couldn't breathe." she told Reuters Television.
However, some Londoners said they would not be cowed by the blasts.
"They can't frighten us any more, these people," said John Bijan, owner of a shop about 20 metres from the police cordon at Shepherd's Bush, site of another of the blasts.
"London is stronger than that." |
