Omar Anderson, Gleaner Writer
Pedestrians walk home in central London yesterday, after four blasts ripped through the city during rush hour. - REUTERS
THE FOREIGN Affairs Ministry says it has not received any reports of Jamaicans being injured or killed in a deadly and "heinous" blast that rocked England yesterday morning.
Nearly 40 persons were killed and 700 injured after terrorist bombers blew up three underground tube trains and a double-decker bus during rush hour.
"We are in touch with them (High Commission), and we have no reports of Jamaican injuries or fatalities," Wilton Dyer, public relations manager at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, told The Gleaner.
Expressing his sympathy, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson in a letter yesterday to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said Jamaica condemned the attacks and stood with the people of the United Kingdom against what he called these "vicious assaults".
"This has occurred at the very time that world leaders are gathered at Gleneagles to chart a course to promote peace and eradicate hunger from the poorest regions of the globe," said Mr. Patterson.
LOCALS LIVING IN BRITAIN
But while there is no report of any Jamaican casualties, there have been stories of locals living in Britain having some close shaves.
Jamaican Karen Daley-Edwards lives in North London and has to pass the affected routes each day to attend work in south London.
"When we got to Edgeway Road, the train driver announced that if we don't need to get off, don't get off because there's congestion," she told The Gleaner.
"We continued on to Oxford Circus which is three or four stops from Edgeway Road. When we got there, we heard there was a power failure. The trains didn't stop running. I got on to another line and by the time I got to another three stops, we were told to leave the train station.
"Up to that point, I still was not aware of what was going on. I (later) saw a man walking with blood all over him and I thought he was an alcoholic who met in an accident.
She said her husband phoned to tell her a bomb had gone off at Liverpool Street. "I was like 'A bomb went off?', nobody said that because they kept telling us it was a power surge."
"By the time I got to work at about 10:15 and switched on the radio, I heard that a bus exploded. To me, it was a surreal experience because I had just passed the area and had no idea of what was going on - everything and everyone was calm at that point," related Karen.
Veteran broadcaster/actress Fae Ellington expressed relief that her son Stuart Smellie, could have been a passenger on the bus that blew up if he had not decided to do some more reading in preparation for an interview.
