Met my sister at London Bridge yesterday afternoon to try and get home after all the transport disruption due to the bombings, joining the hordes of people walking up to Liverpool Street station which was reported as apparently open for overland trains only. Once there, we found crowds outside as the police and transport officials had closed the entrances explaining that they were trying to sort out limited train services. As Zone 1 buses (central) were not running we decided to walk north towards Hackney until we could catch a bus - which we eventually did, getting home in two hours as opposed to a usual commute of 40 minutes.
There are officially 37 dead from the four bombs which went off yesterday: 21 from the King's Cross tube; 7 from the Edgeware Rd tube; 7 from the Aldgate tube; 2 from the bus at Tavistock Square nr Russell Square. It's scary to think how much randomness plays into who lives or dies in these situations as my sister was on the train in front of the King's Cross tube which was bombed. She told me her train was rammed with people (she only just squeezed on), which explains the high number of fatalities on the train behind as it would have been similar. The death toll will probably rise due to the high number of casualties estimated at over 700.
My colleagues were saying that train and tube services were running a limited service this morning (with the affected tube lines closed) and that there were fewer people than normal. I decided it would be easier to ride my motorbike into work today than take the variety of bus routes and tube connections I would have had to use because of the closure of the Piccadilly line and King's Cross station. Road traffic seemed to be quite busy with plenty of buses running. On the whole, most of the transport system is up and running and people are trying to get on as normally as possible after yesterday's trauma.
BBC UPDATE
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