My fourth encounter with a terrorist bomb in London was yesterday morning at 08:49.
I wasn't sure whether it was a bomb at first, despite my experience of them. I realize now that the bomb in the tunnel near Aldgate tube station that shook our building was right under us, and the airborne shockwave that came out the station entrance hit our windows at the same time as the bang.
For a while I thought a Metropolitan Line train had hit the buffers. Reports came through of power surges causing explosions or a train collision, then that there had been an explosion.
We had to evacuate. As my company followed its disaster recovery plans and we walked across London, we could see the police invoking their emergency procedures. Roads were quickly taped off and traffic was being directed around affected areas; paramedics were driving along the pavements and other pedestrian areas where the road was clogged with traffic; police commandeered red double-decker busses to carry the walking wounded to various hospitals.
I'm in a DR site the other side of the Thames. I got to stay in a posh hotel last night. By next morning, everyone who works in my company was accounted for.
Click on the photo to see a set of pictures of Aldgate and people nearby, now expanded to include some of the tributes left at the scene.
Update: In September I visited an academic at the LSE who is researching bloggers for his PhD thesis. He asked me what I was trying to convey in this posting. I said I just wanted to show how Londoners are getting on with things and not killing other people in revenge. (However, I posted the above before the death of Jean Charles de Menezes.)
Sun, December 31, 2006 at 18:48 