'There were little kids clinging on to the back of me...it was chaos' - how the Parsons Green terror attack unfolded
Commuters on the packed 8.20am District Line tube got lucky. As the train pulled into Parsons Green station in west London, a plastic bucket that had been placed by a set of doors exploded before their eyes.
It sent a ball of flame into the air and sparked a stampede for safety; passengers, among them children and at least one pregnant woman, were trampled in the race to escape. Twenty-nine people would be injured in the blast and require treatment, the youngest aged 10. Eighteen people suffered burns while the others were injured in the chaos that ensued.
It could have been so much worse. The improvised explosive device contained in the bucket did not properly go off. Instead it sent a fireball into the air that singed and scorched commuters in the immediate vicinity of commuters sat and stood in the rear carriage of the train.
Peter Crowley, a sales consultant, posted a picture on his Twitter feed showing his charred scalp, his hair burnt to the roots.
“I heard a large bang from the doors on the other side of the tube train and this fireball came towards my head and singed off all my hair,” said Mr Crowley, 37, from Sutton in south London, “It was a really hot intense fireball above my head. I’ve just got red marks and burns to the top of my head. There were a lot of people a lot worse than me.”
He saw one man burnt across the side of his face while the whole of the back of his puffa jacket was set alight.
Parsons Green London Underground terror attack, in pictures
A caller to LBC radio station said he was speaking from hospital where he was being treated for burns. “It’s my head, and it’s my hair. Just hurts. It’s crazy,” he said, “There was a flame in my face. There were just people with hair on fire… hands on fire.”
Luke Warmsley, 33, who was on the train, said: “It was like a large match had gone off at the end of the carriage. There was a plume of smoke that went off. I looked down the carriage and just saw more and more people running towards me.”
Lauren Hubbard, 24, who was in the end carriage of the train with her boyfriend, heard a loud bang and saw a “fire ball” racing in her direction.
“It was hot and just came towards you, this flaming orange coming towards you. It smelt like burning,” she recalled, “We ran and hid behind cement boxes on the tracks and were the last people to get off the platform.”
She knew straight away what was happening. “My first thought was: ‘this is a terrorist attack, I’m going to die’.”
The explosion sparked an inevitable panic. The train had just pulled into the platform and passengers had got on at parsons Green, heading eastbound to Victoria and Westminster. The doors had shut again when the device had gone off. The train doors opened immediately and with the flames leaping in the air, commuters ran screaming for their lives.
In the carriage lay a smouldering white bucket in a Lidl shopping bag, wires trailed from the bucket on to the floor.
Chris Wildish, who was on the train, described the “device” in the last carriage. “Flames were still coming out of it when I saw it and had a lot of wires hanging out of it - I can only assume it was done on purpose,” he said. “It was standing against the door of the rear-most carriage.”
The plastic bucket, still smouldering, was captured on a video taken on a camera phone by Sylvain Pennec. Rather than run for his life, he stayed behind on the platform and filmed the device. “It looked like a bucket of mayonnaise,” he said. “I’m not sure if it was a chemical reaction or something else, but it looked home made. I’m not an expert though.”
The remains may not have impressed onlookers but the explosion had triggered - not surprisingly - utter mayhem.
Ryan Barnett, 25, who works in politics, was sat with his headphones in listening to music and minding his own business. He said: “I’m not really paying attention and all of a sudden hundreds of people run past me screaming a mixture of ‘stampede’, ‘attack’, ‘terrorist’, ‘explosion’, ‘get off the train’, ‘everyone run’.”
Mr Barnett was fortunate not to be seriously injured in the rush to escape. “I ended up squashed on the staircase, people were falling over, people fainting, crying, there were little kids clinging on to the back of me,” he said, “It was absolute chaos, it was quite scary because at one stage we thought we might be trapped there - I heard a pregnant woman lost her shoes and had fallen over.”
Parsons Green Tube carriage explosion
Charlie Craven, who works in the City, said: “I stepped in [to the carriage], within two or three seconds there was a massive explosion. There was a massive fireball encompassing the whole carriage.
“We managed to get off, but there was mass hysteria and people shouting and screaming. A few of us ducked under the fence and ran down the track. We thought there could be a second bomb or a gunman - I thought that was us gone.”
Most passengers headed straight for the station exit but via a staircase at the front of the train. The crush was every bit as terrifying as the explosion that preceded it. Eyewitnesses described seeing a pregnant woman trampled under foot fearing for her baby. They told of a schoolboy, aged about ten, his head smashed on the floor of a concrete stair.
Emma Steventon, 27, a beauty blogger, who lives in Parsons Green, said: “We just all ran for our lives, and we didn’t know why, we didn’t hear an explosion and I thought acid had been thrown around or something,.
“I was just wondering why and we got to the steps and it was just the worst proper human crush.
“There was a woman underneath me and there was a lady shouting: ‘I’m pregnant’. There was a little boy, his face had got smacked into the step. I was holding onto the railing in a foetal position trying not to put my weight on anyone but there was just layers and layers of people screaming.
“It was awful, it was just really traumatic and we didn’t know why we were running.”
Olaniyi Shokunbi, 24, a fitness instructor, who had been on the train, spotted a boy, lying on the floor, pleading for help to find his younger sibling.
“There was a little boy, I really felt sorry for him, he couldn’t have been more than 11,” said Mr Shokunbi, “He had scratches on his head, he was looking for his little brother.”
Richard Aylmer-Hall, 53, a media technology consultant, saw several people injured, trampled in the escape. “I saw crying women, there was lots of shouting and screaming, there was a bit of a crush on the stairs going down to the streets,” he said.
Aaron Butterfield, a production manager, watched people “crawling over one another” in panic.
Outside the station, the rescue efforts continued. Sophie Raworth, the BBC news presenter, saw a woman on a stretcher with burns to her face and legs. “She’s conscious, she was taking oxygen and pain relief as well. She seemed to have burns all over her body from top to toe,” she said.
As the injured were being seen to and the ambulance crews began taking those needing treatment to nearest hospitals, the hunt began for the bomber.
Heavily armed anti-terror officers, wearing masks to protect their identities, continued to patrol the ear in the aftermath of the attack. They carried ‘military-style’ weaponry as they searched homes and gardens within the half mile cordon surrounding the scene.
Residents were evacuated shortly after the attack. The area is renowned as a wealthy, family-orientated neighbourhood where typical Victorian terraced houses can be worth anywhere between £2 million to £4 million.
Last night, five streets, from Elmstone Road to Whittingstall Road, remained inside the police cordon. Forensic tents could be seen being erected at the end of the streets, where five bedroom houses can fetch as much as £3.5 million.
Scotland Yard said the area surrounding Parsons Green Tube station had been evacuated so specialist officers could “secure the remnants of the improvised device and ensure it is stable”.
At Ride Republic, an exercise studio near Parsons Green station, armed police evacuated the building. Rumours had abounded - later scotched - that there might have been a second bomb; or else the terrorist was on the rampage wielding a knife.
Nobody was taking any chances. The Zebedee Nursery was subject to a police cordon. Armed anti-terror officers stood guard and children kept inside under their protection. Susan Gahan, the principal, said: “The police were amazing, we didn’t have many children as parents couldn’t get to us. Everything was very calm and organised.”
The local Kensington Prep school was also in temporary lockdown. Parents who raced to the scene were ordered into the White Horse Pub, a well-known landmark, to wait for news of their children. One mother, whose child is at the school Kensington Prep, told the Telegraph she had been informed that all the children had been moved to the building’s hall and the school has been closed off as a precaution.
In the coffee shop outside the Tube station, Rachel Green, 18, rushed to the aid of the distressed commuters coming up to street level. “We went to console them,” she said, “There were over 100 – women coming out without shoes, battered and bruised, and they’d left their handbags behind.
“There was talk of a fire. Two people came in to the shop with their clothes burnt off, who said they saw a fire coming towards them.
“There were mothers with babies, it was the school rush time. I’m really shocked. This is a quiet family-friendly area.”
Staff at Sainsbury’s on Fulham Road, yards from the station, also rallied round, offering shelter to survivors of the bombing.
A couple due to get married at 3pm at St Dionis Church, which found itself inside the police cordon, suddenly found themselves in a race for a new venue. They succeeded in getting wed half an hour later than planned at All Saints Church near Putney Bridge.
Annotated: The home-made device
Bishop Tomlin said: “We had to move quite quickly, moving a wedding is quite a complicated legal business, we managed to make it work so the couple could get married in All Saints Church, the parish next door.
“It is a bit of a sign that life can continue and good things happen really, in the middle of something deeply evil like this.”
London had come under attack again; the fourth in six months. This was the first in that time in which nobody, thankfully, had been killed. The bomber had vanished last night, his identity still not known. Police and intelligence agents were scrutinising CCTV footage, looking for the terrorist.
Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, praised the city’s resilience. “Within moments, the brilliant TfL [Transport for London] staff were helping commuters embark and get to safety,” he said, “Local shopkeepers and commuters were helping other passengers who may have been hurt.”
In the coming days, the police presence on transport and at key sites will again be enhanced, said the mayor. In a statement he issued, he said: “Our city utterly condemns the hideous individuals who attempt to use terror to harm us and destroy our way of life. As London has proven again and again, we will never be intimidated or defeated by terrorism.”
Life, he insisted, must go on. Londoners will agree with that.
