London 07/07/05 Bombings

The terrorist events of 7/7 in London was all deja vu to me. How can these things happen not once, but twice for me? Back on 9/11, I can still remember watching the end of the second explosion of the plane hitting the World Trade Center North Tower, and seeing both towers fall from Jersey City. July 7 was just like any other day, but it was actually festive at first. On the day before, London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games so the mood was quite pleasant.

When the first reports of an accident in the London Underground tube came in at around 8:50AM GMT, it was just the usual thing, a bad signal failure or a broken down train. It was thought to be a electric transformer exploded in Liverpool/East Aldgate stations, but then another "incident" occurred near Kings Cross station. Then the power company providing supplies to the Tube said in a news conference there were no problems with any transformers. People in the office began to worry somewhat. On the plasma tele, BBC News and Sky News were showing full live coverage. CNN was just coming up with breaking news but they did not have much. A Skycopter showed people streaming out of the affected stations, police and emergency vehicles were concentrated there. When the third explosion occurred near Russell Square, it became practically known that London was under a terrorist attack.

Markets were somewhat negative, and people were talking about the London Stock Exchange contemplating shutting down their systems because of the attacks. People tried to do their trading business as best they could, but what can you do when the live feed through most of the news channels were focused on London. It was surreal when you start seeing thousands of people walking on the streets, much like the New Yorkers leaving Manhattan island on foot. This was after the London Underground shut down the entire tube network at 9:19 (Code Amber Alert) because they could not guarantee the full safety of all of its passengers.

Then the fourth bomb on a London bus (No. 30) really made things a bit more frightening. It happened at around 9:47, and when the first pictures came through, the bus was just a former shell of itself. The top and backside of the bus were just gone, and you have to be amazed at how some people managed to survive after the blast. The office decided that people that needed to leave because they lived outside of London were allowed to do so. It was obvious it will take hours to get out since public transportation (bus and tube) was shut down. There was pretty much nothing we can do, but watch the tele and see the events fold out.

Our US office checked to make sure we were all right. Fortunately, everyone was present in the office. I had to field several phone calls and IM / text messages from friends to see if I was alright. Somehow I wish that I would never want to go through another event like this but it does reveal that a terrorist attack could happen anywhere, and we have to stay vigilant and be aware of what is going around us.