London bomb blasts

As you’ve probably heard by now, a number of explosions have gone off in the London Underground system and on a number of buses. Tony Blair has just confirmed it was a terrorist attack designed to coincide with the G8 conference.

Thanks to those of you IMing to see if I’m OK – I am, and fortunately everyone at Multimap has been accounted for too. The explosions all occurred fairly near the office here, so we’ve been surrounded by sirens for the last few hours. BBC News and the Guardian both have detailed coverage, and the Guardian Newsblog reports a number of fatalities (I overheard someone say 20 during Tony Blair’s address). Those of you craving audio should refer to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and their Newsradio stream (Windows media) which has been running the BBC World Service. There’s now a Wikipedia entry, a Wikinews report and a Flickr pool for the bombing.

I feel sick.

I’d like to a quote from Adactio. Jeremy gets it spot on with the way London is responding to this:

The terrorists responsible for these attacks are clearly not only a bunch of murdering bastards, they are a bunch of murdering bastards who don’t know their history. London made it through the blitz and through years of IRA bombings. Londoners react to explosions not with fear and terror but with resolution and bravery.