Man of Maltese descent close to bus 'bang'

A young man of Maltese origin was yesterday one of the first people to speak to the driver of bus number 26 travelling from Waterloo to Hackney in east London on which an explosion took place.

Joe Grima told The Times the bus stopped opposite his mother's house, and when he heard a commotion, he rushed out to check what was happening.

When contacted, the 29-year-old Mr Grima said he spotted the bus driver and went straight to ask him what had happened. The bus driver, he said, told him that he had heard a loud bang while driving and initially thought that he had been hit by another vehicle. He told Mr Grima that he stopped the bus immediately and went to check what had happened. Mr Grima said the bus driver found a small black rucksack in the bus, out of which smoke and a strange smell were coming out. The rucksack's seams had split.

"Luckily the bomb had not exploded, because this would have been tragic," Mr Grima said. The bus was full of passengers at the time of the explosion.

Mr Grima's father was Maltese but left Malta in the middle of last century to settle in the United Kingdom.