'I saw a woman ripped to pieces'
Shocked passengers spoke of the horror of seeing people ripped to pieces in today’s third blast close to Edgware Road station.
Seven people have been confirmed dead following the explosion at 9.17am involving three trains.
Carol Miller, 35, from Oxford, who was on a Circle Line train going in the opposite direction from the one hit, said: “People were screaming, as you’d expect, in that situation.
“I saw one lady who was ripped to pieces, lying between the two trains. People were trying to help her.
“It was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever seen in my life. People were screaming out, there was debris everywhere.
“We were trying to open doors to let in air but we couldn’t.”
She said: “There were two tubes crossing in different directions. As it (the other train) got to our carriage it exploded. It was a massive explosion and immediately everything filled up with smoke.
She said survivors were trapped for about 20 or 30 minutes before being led to safety through the tunnel.
Ben McCarthy was several carriages from the explosion on the Circle Line train which was hit.
He told the ITV News Channel: “The carriages filled with smoke.
“At that stage, somebody, a man I think, was blown out of the door of the train, he was under the carriages.
“Everything was black, and filled with smoke for a while. We were on the train for 20 minutes to half an hour before people came down the track and gradually escorted us to Edgware Road.
“It was probably only about 200 metres out of Edgware Road station, heading towards Paddington when there was this loud explosion.
“It was terrifying. People were incredibly calm but very, very shocked.
“The screams from the guy who was under the train obviously made the whole incident so much worse.”
American student Sean Baran was walking towards Edgware Road station when the explosion occurred.
The 20-year-old, from the University of Virginia, spent the next three hours helping injured passengers reach safety.
“One gentleman told me that the floor of the train he was on was blown out, it was just gone,” he said.
“I believe another gentleman was ejected from the train. Whether he fell or was blown by the force of the blast I don’t know.”
One victim of the blast spoke from his hospital bed in the Douglas admission and assessment unit at St Mary’s, in Paddington,
Chris Randall, 28, was on his way to work at the Daily Mail in High Street, Kensington, when the explosion rocked the carriage.
The accounts manager fell to the floor covering his face with his hands. The explosion left him with cuts and burns to the face, legs and hands.
His hearing has also been impaired by the blast.
“I didn’t hear anything, just a flash of light, people screaming, no thoughts of what it was, I just had to get out of the train,” he said.
He said his train had just pulled out of the station: “The next thing I knew, there was a loud flash, very loud flash and a burning sensation in my hand.
“I put my hands up to my face, I was on the floor by that point, I can’t recall anything prior to that.”
He added: “I guess on the tube I would say there was about six or seven people lying on the floor, a lot of people, a lot of blood on faces and ripped clothes. A number of people were fine.”
He said: “The train was at a complete standstill, the lights were out, there was a lot of smoke.
“All the windows were blown in and some of the metal had been burnt inside the carrage so I thought it was a pretty hard impact, but had no idea at the time it could have been a terrorist attack.”
Superintendent Jon Morgan, of the Metropolitan Police, said the Underground station was being treated as a crime scene.
“It was chaotic to start with but then extremely well managed by all the emergency services thereafter.
“This incident was extremely traumatic for all those involved.”
