Terrorist incident in London
15 September 2017 - RPS Partnership
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An "improvised explosive device" was detonated on a Tube train in south-west London during Friday's rush hour, Scotland Yard has confirmed.
The blast, at Parsons Green station on an eastbound District Line train from Wimbledon, is being treated as terrorism. Twenty-two people are being treated in hospital, mostly for burn injuries, according to the BBC News.
A hunt for the person who placed the device is under way, with hundreds of detectives and MI5 investigating. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley earlier refused to reveal whether anyone had yet been arrested. The BBC understands the device had a timer and intelligence services would be reviewing whether to raise the national terrorism level from severe - the second highest - to critical, the highest threat, which means an attack is expected imminently.
NHS England said 22 patients were being treated at Imperial, Chelsea and Westminster, Guy's and St Thomas' and the Central London Community Healthcare Urgent Care Centre. Eighteen people were taken by ambulance and a further four arrived at hospital themselves. Witnesses have described seeing at least one passenger with facial injuries, while others spoke of "panic" as alarmed passengers left the train at the station, which is above ground.
This is the fifth terrorism incident of 2017 in which an attack has taken place. It's the only one this year in which nobody has died. The previous four saw 36 people killed.
Police believe they have stopped six other significant plots - all of which will soon be coming before the courts.
What happens now? The Metropolitan Police's Counter-Terrorism Command needs to get to the bottom of three key questions. One: Who did it? Two: Are there any more devices out there? Three: Who else, if anyone, is involved? Experts from the government's secret explosives research laboratory will be looking at the evidence from the train and seeing whether it matches anything else they have seen before.
RPS Partnership has posted the latest London Regional Counter Terror Command's update, which you can download below.
Contact us on [email protected] for more information on how to stay safe and what to do during a terrorist attack.
Photo: BBC eyewitnesses