Terrorist attacks in central London

[Bob]

Depending on time difference, I'm not sure if you guys will know about the terrorist attacks in central London today.

There were three explosions, all affecting the 'tube' (underground rail network for those of you that don't really know much about the London transport system). The first happened at about 8:49am, in the tunnel between Liverpool Steet and Aldgate stations (Aldgate East keeps getting mentioned as well).

As it was raining heavily today, I'd decided to leave the bike at home as the roads would be unsafe - and go in by tube. I reckon I got off the train at Aldgate East at about... 8:48

Got into work and heard about more explosions - including one on a bus.

So we were ordered to stay in the building and wait for developments. Then the other building we have was evacuated into our one. Then we were asked to evacuate our building, as there was a suspicious vehicle in the area. As luck would have it, we have a sister company so we went to their building until we were told we may as well go home - and not to go in tomorrow.

The central zone had NO transport at all. Luckily, riding in each day I know the roads, so I walked for about an hour and a bit to a station outside the central zone (also very handy that Laura was at home, so she could check on transport information and let me know developments), which was open so I could get home.

I thought you might want to know the chain of events, so this link will give you a chronological development of what occurred.

The last I heard, 33 people had died, but no figures have been given for the explosion on the bus, so it is definitely going to be higher.

If any of you have friends or relatives over here, I hope you've heard from them and that they are safe.

Bob

[rfc85]

Its only 5.45 over here so most people are still in the pit-glard to hear u are ok fucken arseholes

[Antallica]

Not something I want to watch when getting up in the morning.

Glad you're ok mate.

[Two Smoker]

Glad your ok Bob, sounds like you had a fucking close call at 8:48 Saw it on the news at about 2130 local time (shortly after the explosions had occured your time...)

Keep us updated mate

[placidfemme]

I'm such a doris I didn't know this had happened until I saw the front of the Herald at the gas station this morning...

Someone was deffinatly watching over you Bob... It's good to hear you are ok and that your family is ok.

[Ms Piggy]

Glad you're ok Bob. It's a truly tragic event.

[Blackbird]

Wonderful thing , email. As soon as it broke on TV we fired up the pooter to send a message to our younger son and girlfriend who work in London and there were already messages there saying they were fine - huge relief.

Take care Bob.

[Bob]

Thanks all - I think, so people can keep up to date, that I'll post a link to the BBC's news page:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

This is getting updated fairly frequently, so hopefully it will assist.

We were told today do NOT go to work tomorrow, the office will remain closed. I work for an American owned company, so memories will be getting dragged up right now. Thankfully, as far as I know everyone was accounted for at work and were OK.

[ajturbo]

bob!

you are one lucky(?) guy...
sorry to see what has happened to your place... makes a good reason to come out here eh?
we only have 2 police forces (sp!)
one for all of NZ and one for the locals on east coast

[FROSTY:Me]

hey bob --we were waiting to hear from you --theres another thread about this. whew another one to cross off the list
All my relatives working/living in london have made contact thank gosh

[Pwalo]

Glad to hear you're ok Bob. We saw the coverage on Sky last night, and I remembered that you commuted into the city.

Looks as if the police etc were really well prepared, and it was good to see so many people staying calm and helping with the wounded.

Scary stuff. Makes you realise that being stuck on the arse end of the world has it's advantages.

[Lou Girardin]

Glad they missed you Bob.
It's times like this that Poms really show what they're made of.

[curious george]

Lucky escape Bob!
Hope there are no more and they fry those responsible

[zadok]

Great to hear from you and know you are ok.
I'm amazed and pleased that the death toll seems to be very low. The procedures put in place for emergencies such as this must be really working well.

[Bob]

What amazed me yesterday was the way that people handled it. In our office, my manager and myself just got on with working. Couple of people were glued to our big screen, but were not getting panicky or anything.

Woman I worked with was clearly rattled to begin with and was on about 'going home as soon as possible' (which to be honest would have been the worst thing to do - why go out there and add to the confusion, when you can stay in a warm, dry office with tea and coffee and - if we had to - the tins of emergency goods we cached when there were fears of chemical attacks), but she calmed down once she realised the rest of us were staying put (and the police have a comms link with all big businesses in the area, so they had come through to ask everyone to stay inside).

But when we had to relocate, everyone just walked calmly to the other office and when we were told to leave, there was no panic, just people calmly heading home, resigned to the fact they would be walking for a while until they found a way to get home.

Of course, there is always a flipside...

When I got to an open station and a train pulled in, the doors opened and everyone was cramming into that area. Then I spotted the selfish bastard that had moved about a foot into the aisle between the seats and was just standing there as he was comfortable. Standard British politeness meant no-one asked him to move.

I am not your standard polite Brit. I yelled out loudly "Can you move down the train, there are a lot of other people who would like to get home as well". Cue lots of other people mumbling their agreement.

And the thing I think is truly awful? There were a lot of people who just could not get home. So they went to hotels. And there are reports of a lot of hotels and B&B's charging DOUBLE their usual rates. The holiday and entertainment booking site Lastminute.com was issuing warnings on their site as little as two hours after the event. Trading standards are asking anyone who was stung to contact them, as they are going to hit them - I hope very, very hard.

And finally for today... a website in Texas was trying to explain to people the geography of the area where it happened. Trouble is, all they had to help them was some old tourist guide.

Take a look at:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3257000