London Hit Again With Explosions

Passengers pulled the emergency cord, opened the doors and fled. Some said they could see the still-intact backpack inside the car. Three men -- including one selling flowers just outside the station -- ran after the suspect, but he dashed up an escalator and escaped.

"People were trying to drop him, to rugby-tackle him," said Paul Martin, 32, who was on his way to a cricket match at the famed Oval grounds when the incident occurred. "There was a general melee."

Hugues Caillat, a French visitor, was buying a ticket in the station concourse when the suspect ran by. "He was running, and at the same time, people were running after him," Caillat said. "The guy said something like, 'What's wrong with these people?' He was a skinny Asian guy with a little beard."

About 15 minutes later, a third explosion was reported on the Victoria Line near the Warren Street station to the north. Once again, train passengers pulled the emergency cord and stampeded from a car filling with smoke, some of them screaming in fright. A man ran up the stairs and tried to fade into the crowd.

Witnesses said he headed off in the direction of nearby University College Hospital. Police sent an e-mail to some of the hospital's staff members asking them to be on the lookout for a black or Asian man, about 6 feet 2 inches tall, wearing a blue shirt or jacket with wires protruding from it.

Armed bands of police stalked the hallways, witnesses said, and ordered staff members to remain inside their offices. They eventually arrested a man whom they held at gunpoint for nearly two hours before taking him away.

"I've never seen so many police in my life," a staff member who did not identify herself told reporters, "and with guns as well."

Just as on July 7, the last attack occurred on a bus -- in this case on the No. 26 on Hackney Road in the Bethnal Green section of East London about 1:30 p.m. Passengers told reporters that they heard a small detonation inside a backpack at the rear of the upper deck -- the same location as the bomb that killed 14 people July 7. This time, however, the detonation caused only minor glass breakage.

The bus driver took a look at the backpack, which lay split open, and ordered everyone off the vehicle. Police then sealed off the area and called in a bomb disposal unit.

As happened two weeks ago, rescue workers and police initially hesitated to approach the bomb scenes for fear they were being lured into booby-trapped vehicles. They eventually examined each site and determined that no chemical or biological materials were present.

Still, the city throbbed with anxiety. Outside the security gates leading to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street offices, police wielding automatic weapons ordered an Asian-looking man carrying a backpack to halt, lie down on the sidewalk with his arms extended and then remove the bag while guards trained their weapons at his head. He was then hauled away. Office workers at Labor Party headquarters a few blocks away were ordered out of their building because of a bomb scare.

Both incidents turned out to be false alarms. Later, officials said both the man taken outside Downing Street and the man arrested at the hospital were released without charge.