Emergency services said they were responding to an “incident” in which people were injured at an Underground station in west London on Friday, following media reports of an explosion. “We are aware of an incident at Parsons Green tube station. Officers are in attendance,” London’s Metropolitan Police said on Twitter. The station was closed, as well as an entire section of the District Line where it is located.
London’s ambulance service said on Friday it had sent its hazardous area response team to an incident at a west London metro station after reports of a blast. “We have sent multiple resources to the scene including single responders in cars, ambulance crews, incident response officers and our hazardous area response team,” the London Ambulance Service said on Twitter. “Our initial priority is to assess the level and nature of injuries.” London’s transport authority said it had extended a suspension of the underground line which runs through Parsons Green metro station in west London.
A woman at London’s Parsons Green underground train station told Reuters on Friday she was injured in a stampede. Armed police were at the scene, a Reuters photographer said. A blast on an underground train at Parsons Green left some passengers with facial burns at the station, London’s Metro newspaper reported on its website.
Flames engulfed one carriage and raced along a train on a west London route to Parsons Green, forcing passengers to trample others as they rushed for an exit, an eyewitness told. The man said people were trampled on when they fled the train after hearing a whoosh and seeing flames race towards them. He said he did not hear a bang after police rushed to an incident at the station at Parsons Green. “I just heard a kind of whoosh. I looked up and saw the whole carriage engulfed in flames making its way towards me,” he told Reuters, adding that the train was packed with people.