A developing story. This from AP:
LONDON - Three London Underground stations were evacuated at midday Thursday following reports of incidents, British Transport Police said. The Fire Brigade was investigating a report of smoke at one station.Emergency services also were responding to a report of an incident on a bus in east London, police said.
A London Underground spokesman said there were no reports of casualties in the unspecified incidents....
On Thursday, the Warren Street, Shepherds Bush and Oval stations were evacuated. Emergency services personnel were called to the stations, police said.
"People were panicking. But very fortunately the train was only 15 seconds from the station," witness Ivan McCracken told Sky news.
McCracken said he smelled smoke at the Warren Street station, and people were panicking and coming into his carriage. He said he spoke to an Italian man who was comforting a woman after the evacuation.
"He said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack," McCracken said.
"The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage."
Update from Bloomberg:
Three London Underground stations were evacuated following unspecified incidents, London police said. In addition, Archway and Moorgate stations were cleared.``We can confirm that emergency service personnel are responding to reports of incidents at three locations on the London underground system,'' police spokeswoman Kirsten Ross said.
Three Underground lines have been suspended -- the Victoria, Northern and Hammersmith and City lines, the spokeswoman said...
I read that there was report that one of the London bombers several weeks ago had bought a large amount of designer perfume which terrorism experts viewed could be used for a napalm type bomb which would burn people rather than a powerful explosion.
On the CCTV footage of the bombers at Luton the one who blew himself up later than the others is carrying a large rucksack. Detectives have speculated in the his last hour he might have met up with someone to give him this rucksack which could have been containing a fifth bomb.
Elephant:
In addition to the napalm style effect, the containers may be shattered into shrapnel.
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No major casualties - it would appear that all the bombs failed to go off and the explosions were caused by the detonators - although there are reports that the bombs were thrown into tube carriages by a man who ran away.
But I'm sure Mr Livingstone understands those people, of course ... "understanding and empathy", that is the key, makes one feel so rational and calm and level-headed and unsimplistic ...