Bomb probe reveals communications breakdown

Emergency crews at last July's London bombings were let down by poor communications and flawed plans to help survivors, a six-month inquiry concluded yesterday.

Some rescuers relied on radios which did not work on the underground rail network and others' mobile phones failed, the report by the elected London Assembly said.

"This breakdown in communication led to a failure to deploy the right numbers of ambulances to the right locations; a lack of necessary equipment and supplies at the scene and delays in getting some of the injured to hospital," the report said.

The most striking failing was the lack of planning to care for people who survived and were traumatised, it added.

"It is unacceptable that the emergency services, with the exception of the British Transport police, are still not able to communicate when they are underground," the report said.

Four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters and injured some 700 in attacks on three trains and a bus in the capital during the morning rush hour on July 7, 2005.

Richard Barnes, chairman of the committee which wrote the report, said police, fire and ambulance crews had been "incredibly brave" but that lessons needed to be learnt after their communications broke down.

An over-reliance on mobile phones was exposed when police in the City of London financial district ordered the temporary shutdown of part of the network without checking with those leading the response.  

"We actually had someone acting outside the command structure on July 7 and that was not necessarily helpful," Mr Barnes told BBC Radio.

The failure to provide survivors with a central place to gather after the bombings to get help and give their details was another key mistake, he added.

Many survivors and victims' relatives have called for a full public inquiry into the bombings, the first suicide attacks in Western Europe.

Some commentators have said Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the US-led war in Iraq helped fuel home-grown terrorism by radicalising a minority of British Muslims.

The London Assembly set up a cross-party review body in September 2005 to examine the lessons to be learnt.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has said the emergency response "worked virtually perfectly", but witnesses have exposed serious failings during the inquiry.

In March, survivors said some emergency crews were slow to respond to the explosion on a train at Aldgate, in the City of London financial district, over fears of a secondary blast.

One passenger, named only as Michael, said he walked past police and fire crews on the platform as commuters lay dying in a nearby tunnel. Three Britons detonated bombs on separate underground trains shortly before 9 a.m. and a fourth bomber blew himself up on the bus in central London about an hour later.

London Underground were the first to realise something had happened when their system reported power failures on the bombed train lines.

Early reports said there had been an electrical power surge on the train network.

The bombers used simple ingredients for the devices in an operation that probably cost less than £8,000, the government has said. Officials have warned that another attack is almost certain.