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Alert brings city of Birmingham to halt LONDON: A huge overnight security alert in the city of Birmingham kept Britons on edge yesterday just three days after bombs ripped through London's transport network killing at least 50 people. Police evacuated 20,000 people from the centre of the country's second largest city during the night and carried out a controlled explosion on a bus. They found no bombs but said the drastic measures were fully justified. "The threat that we responded to yesterday was very specific," West Midlands Police Chief Constable Paul Scott-Lee told a news conference. "It was specific about the time and also the locations... The people of Birmingham were in danger last night." As the city began to get back to normal, police continued their hunt for those who set off three bombs on the London Underground and blew up a double-decker bus in a fourth blast. And Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the authorities are fearful of more terrorist attacks in Britain until the people behind Thursday's bombings on the capital's transport network are captured. "The fact is the terrorist threat is a real one as we saw so dramatically and awfully on Thursday," Clarke, the Cabinet minister responsible for law and order, told BBC TV. "Our fear is, of course, of more attacks, until we succeed in tracking down the gang which committed the atrocities on Thursday and that's why the number one priority... has to be the catching of the perpetrators," he added. The city's shock with many questions still unanswered was evident yesterday as people gathered for memorial services across the capital to remember the more than 49 people killed and 700 injured. Hundreds of fliers, photos and calls for help appeared pleading for information about loved ones not heard from for days. Scores of flower bouquets were placed outside Kings Cross subway station. Investigators, who on Saturday revised the timings of the subway blasts to near simultaneous instead of almost half an hour apart, are looking at claims by two al-Qaida-inspired groups that they carried out the bombings. The confirmed death toll from Thursday's attacks was 49, but police said it inevitably would rise above 50 after teams of police, forensic scientists and investigators remove bodies still in London's vast Underground transport system. It was not known how many bodies remained inside the Russell Square subway tunnel, but difficult conditions including temperatures of up to 60 C made recovery impossible. "It is a very harrowing task," detective Jim Dickie said. "Most of the victims have suffered intensive trauma, and by that I mean there are body parts as well as torsos." Forensic experts were relying on fingerprints, dental records and DNA analysis to identify the victims of the blasts. None of the 49 dead have been formally identified. Elsewhere in London, the search for survivors by their families and friends intensified. As sobbing relatives held pictures of people missing at subway stations around the city, crews looked into reports of more than 1,000 missing. (China Daily 07/11/2005 page1)
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